Author: Alexis Gutter (Alexis Gutter)

  Something is happening in Brooklyn. In Manhattan Beach, small food producers line up to use Kingsborough Community College’s kitchen space. Every weekend, Manhattanites take the train to DUMBO and Williamsburg to taste handmade fare at Smorgasburg. Purveyors from across Brooklyn have joined forces to create an artisan food cooperative. In Brooklyn, food is big...

The Jam Stand started as a hobby that turned into a joke, before finally growing into a brand. Jessica Quon and Sabrina Valle were business school friends at the University of Florida. After their respective graduations in 2007 and 2008, they took jobs in New York– Quon at a non-profit and Valle at Macy’s. When...

It was quiet in Red Hook and shockingly still. Ikea was nearly deserted even with the countless homes and businesses suddenly in need of replacement furnishings. Of the intermittent Ikea patrons, no one admitted to being a hurricane victim. An employee suggested the cause of the sparse crowds was the difficulty of being able to...

When John Mobley is busy, he knows the economy is doing poorly. Mobley, a 36-year-old freelance carpenter, has been working as a handyman in Sunset Park for six years. It has not made him wealthy, but it has kept him in demand. Mobley charges less than contracted carpenters, and so has found that his workload...