Crumbs Closes

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Back in 2003, a small bake shop opened in the Upper West Side.  What made this bake shop so unique, however, was that they exclusively sold gourmet cupcakes.  The bake shop: Crumbs.  The family-owned company pioneered the cupcake craze across New York City, and soon began rapid expansion, so that by the end of the decade, it had locations across the country.  Back in 2011, it was purchased by a shell company, and went public later that year.  Since then, they faced serious financial problems, losing $10.3 million in 2012 and $18.2 million in 2013.  In June, the stock plummeted below 30 cents, which prompted Nasdaq to suspend Crumbs’ stock from the exchange.  In response to this, the cupcake shop is closing all of its stores and ceasing operation.

Crumbs cupcakes like these are no longer available to consumers, due to the stores’ abrupt closing.

The chain’s website listed the closings as temporary, however, there is little hope that this will be fixed.  As a result of the shutdown, hundreds of employees and part-time workers were let go.  They had 48 stores in 10 states and Washington, DC, all of which closed Monday night.  In the previous two years, it had closed many other stores.  According to Craig Garthwaite, a business strategy professor at Northwestern University, the closure isn’t that surprising.  Crumbs is making a product that’s ultimately very easy to imitate, and in the end, they’re selling a brand; making a cupcake isn’t too hard.  There wasn’t much reason for people to choose Crumbs over other cupcake venues, since in the gourmet market, it’s more likely that customers prefer niche companies with local ties.  Even as more cupcake shops opened up in an attempt to capitalize on the cupcake trend, demand for gourmet cupcakes has declined.

While cupcakes are always going to be popular, the gourmet fad is fading away.  After two successive years of rapid decline after going public, Crumbs CEO Edward Slezak acknowledged that the company needed to evolve its business model drastically.  Despite the warning signs, the announcement that all shops have closed has come as a major shock to both customers and employees.  Less than a month ago, shops in the Tri-State area launched a new breakfast menu and gave away free morning pastries.

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Brazil Gets Clobbered

Maria Haymandou’s latest blog post is here!

Anybody who watched the World Cup game yesterday between Brazil and Germany could tell you that it was a historic game.  Brazil’s soccer reputation is legendary, thanks to five World Cup wins and legendary players such as Pele.  And they seemed to be doing really well this world cup, helped out by sheer talent and some questionable referee calls.  However, yesterday, their winning streak was broken when, for the first time in history, the Brazilian national team lost on their home turf in a horrendously one-sided match against the Germans.  Germany had been doing well during the World Cup, but most of their matches had been pretty close.  But yesterday, not only did they beat the Brazilians, they clobbered them with a final score of 7 to 1.  The last time the Brazilian team had been beaten that badly was a 6-0 loss against Uruguay in 1920.  I recently came across an article that discusses the different points that could be gathered from this historic game.

The Internet is filled with photos of sad, angry and frustrated Brazil fans who saw their country’s team lose horrendously to the Germans.

Brazil’s performance yesterday wasn’t anything like they’d been playing the previous World Cup games.  Maybe they got cocky, maybe they were just tired, or maybe they just had a bad day.  For the first 10 minutes or so, they were pretty good.  They pressed the Germans, and the ball mostly stayed on the German side of the field.  But then, in the 11th minute, Thomas Müller ran down to the Brazilian side of the field and scored a goal.  After that, the Germans openly mocked the Brazilian defense, whizzing through their opponents.  Before the first half hour of the game was done, the Germans had scored five goals.  Brazil’s David Luiz tearfully apologized to his countrymen for the loss.

During the match, not only was Selecao badly beaten, but Ronaldo was bumped off the top of the all-time World Cup goal scoring list.  Germany’s Miroslav Klose scored his team’s second goal, giving him 16 in World Cup matches, more than Ronaldo.  Germany now also lays claim to the most goals by one nation in World Cup history, with 223.  Brazil trails just behind, with 220.  Another historical record was set in this game: Germany is now the first team to score seven goals in a semifinal, and holds the largest margin of victory in any semifinal in history.  Of the previous six semifinals, four of them ended in 1-0.  Another was 0-0 after 90 minutes and didn’t even see a goal until 119 minutes.  Lucky for Brazil, however, they have one more match to go, fighting for third place against whoever loses the Argentina-Holland match coming up today.

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Bushwick Jail Cell

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Out in the Brooklyn neighborhood Bushwick, an artist, Miao Jiaxin, just took his studio and turned it into a “jail cell”, complete with a bed, sink, toilet and 24-hour surveillance.  Anybody who wants to can rent the apartment for $1 a day is totally free to.  Jiaxin, who is originally from China, arrived in New York City in 2006, not knowing anybody and feeling extremely alienated.  According to him, this jail installation is a “social experiment” meant to give people a sense of what it’s like to be a newly arrived immigrant in the United States like him.

A look at the jail cell inside Jiaxin’s studio.

For the project, Jiaxin converted his studio on Van Buren Street into a jail cell, 6-by-8 at 6 feet tall.  The cell is available for bookings, however, occupants must agree to remain in the cage for at least three hours every morning.  They are also not allowed to sleep, write, exercise, surf the Internet, read or make any crafts.  Some other requirements include a $300 deposit and a minimum stay of two days or a maximum of five.  Jiaxin plans on renting the studio-jail-cell out to various enterprising people for one year.

That room, according to Jiaxin, is his studio, where he’s supposed to work.  However, he’s a performance artist, and doesn’t really need to have a big space to make objects like many other artists, who use their studios to paint or sculpt.  Therefore, he’s going to use it to think and sit with other people.  It isn’t yet clear as to when this is going to start.

Although America was a nation founded by immigrants, that’s a fact that many Americans, some of them even the grandchildren of foreigners, tend to forget.  Even the Native Americans are descended from immigrants (their own ancestors arrived in this continent from Siberia some 15,000 years ago).  Therefore, it’s essential that all Americans understand and appreciate our country’s immigrant past.  This is what makes this art installation so interesting.  I’m eager to hear what participants have to say about it.

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