My Afternoon In Midtown

  My Afternoon In Midtown 
  Originally uploaded by fredwilson.

I spent yesterday afternoon in midtown manhattan. In the span of about three hours in midtown, I accumulated three of these visitor badges.

Union Square Ventures is located in the Flatiron district between Union Square park and Madison Square park. It's not a high end office location. And one of the great benefits of working in and visiting companies in the Flatiron district (and Soho, Tribeca, the Village, Chelsea, etc) is you don't have to spend five minutes getting through security.

I realize why we have this security in midtown and wall street. I lived through 9/11 too.

But given the choice, which fortunately I have, I would never locate a business in one of these high security buildings. It's a pain to visit them .

Comments

[Alfred C]

I don't know dude -- love your writings, the openess, thoughts etc.

But complaining because you had to wait 5 minutes at a few buildings in midtown NYC . . . seems so petty and useless.

[fred]

alfred,

the post was not a complaint.

it was an observation about the costs of locating in midtown.

fred

[steve]

alas, i think your observation is ephemeral

the idea that big targets are the best is painfully outdated

and its only a matter of time before we learn that thru bloody tragedy

ask the spanish, brits, balinese, israelis and the iraqis -- small buildings and small gathering places are much easier to attack (as you Fred point out) and much more potent too -- as they cause much bigger anxiety and distress in a community, as the everyday event starts to feel vulnerable, not just the big event

[Rick]

Your security is pretty intimidating, Mr. Wilson. It's like the FBI over there!

[JayR]

If you're a ten-employee company, I don't know why you'd ever want to be in a midtown hi-rise. But if you have 100 employees, you can't get enough contiguous space between Wall Street and midtown.

[curmudgeonly troll]

sorry Alfred, if you spend a day calling on clients/prospects and have to spend half the time in line to get your picture taken, computer taken out of the bag and x-rayed, getting late for meetings, you ask if the benefit was worth the cost. go, WebEx.

[Thomas Maloney]

When I was in transition I thought of doing an art project concerning all the badges I went through accumulating.

I now work on East Midtown off of 57th in a building that doesn't have this kind of security. Codes for the elevators after hours, and door men and front desk assistants with great face memories (and friendly too.) I thought it was really odd at first, but it's great not having the hassle of security.