And, another one bites the dust.

As reported in the NYTimes, Coney Island's Astroland park will be shutting its doors for good this year.

That's really too bad because NYC continues to lose those things that have made it unique. I wonder, within all this change, which direction we are going - getting better or worse?

As I mentioned last year, everywhere you look it seems someone is trying to sell you something. That, or they're building a new hi-rise condo and are trying to get you to move in.....

I was talking to an a high school friend the other day who is a carpenter. He made the observation that tradesman, crafts persos or carpenter was not included on a profile page he had completed for facebook, myspace or someother. This impressed upon me, more than all the articles I had read to this point, the fact that America truly has become a service economy. One in which very few people actually make anything. Instead, we spend our days "working" to get everyone else to buy the things someone in a lower paid country made...... Uhhhhh.

The folks at Astroland made something. Unfortunately for them, they sold their space (they didn't even sell what they had made). But alas, this is were we stand.