New York
I Tried Using an App to Unlock Cabinets at Drugstores
Good morning. It’s Tuesday. Today we’ll find out about an app that lets customers open locked cabinets in three CVS stores in Manhattan without having to seek assistance from an employee. We’ll also get details on revenue for the first month of congestion pricing.
The locked cabinet opened when I held my cellphone over the lock. The trouble came after I took the exfoliating cleanser off the shelf and put it in my shopping basket.
I was in the CVS store on Bleecker Street in Greenwich Village, using an app on my smartphone that is supposed to make shopping easier. It does, when it works. Does it make shopping faster? I’m not sure.
CVS, like other chain drugstores, moved to fight shoplifting by putting lockable cabinets in its stores in New York City — and putting everyday items like toothbrushes and over-the-counter pain medications inside. A shopper has to press a button, which triggers an announcement over the store’s public address system — “Customer assistance needed in the skin care department,” in my case. An employee then walks to that aisle, unlocks the cabinet and waits while the shopper picks out the exfoliating cleanser. The employee then closes and relocks the cabinet.
Last month CVS updated its app, adding a feature that lets shoppers at three stores in Manhattan unlock the cabinets with their smartphones. No customer assistance necessary.
The marketing intelligence firm Sensor Tower said there was a 17 percent increase in downloads of the CVS app in January. Sensor Tower said the jump might have been driven by shoppers who wanted to use the app in the three stores, where shoppers with the app can do what I did.
When everything goes smoothly, the app allows shoppers to avoid having to wait for a store employee to appear. And that’s good for business, as restricting access to products deters thieves but also shoppers.
“When you lock up your products, you lock out your customers,” Brittain Ladd, a strategy and supply chain consultant, said last month, adding that CVS and Walgreens “have really gone wild in terms of putting Plexiglas all throughout their stores.” A CVS spokeswoman, Tara Burke, said as much when she told me that “we know keeping products locked up can be inconvenient.”
But she also said that shoplifting remained a problem. Theft from CVS stores has increased 30 percent since 2020, she said, adding that locking up products was “a measure of last resort.”
CVS introduced the app as a pilot program at the store on Bleecker Street and two others: at 630 Lexington Avenue, at 53rd Street; and the one I tried first, at 540 Amsterdam Avenue, at 86th Street. I was looking for cough syrup and razor blades.
I logged in but couldn’t get the app to open the cabinet with the cough syrup. A store employee who had walked up the aisle to help someone else saw me holding my phone over the lock and said, “Here, let me.”
I moved on to the razor blades, where the app opened the lock on the cabinet.
But I got messages about an “unexpected error” a couple of times, so I logged out and then in again. And at least once a message appeared saying that the unlocking function was not available in that store.
I left wondering if the app was really ready for prime time, which is why I decided to go to the other two stores.
At the one on Lexington Avenue several days later — when I needed more cough syrup — the app did not open the cabinet despite several tries. “Sometimes it works,” said the employee who unlocked that cabinet for me.
But the app did unlock the cabinet next to the one with the cough syrup. I didn’t need anything from there, but I’d been curious to see what would happen.
Things went better at the Bleecker Street store. I started with the exfoliating cleanser, and the app unlocked the cabinet on the first try. But when I tried to lock the cabinet after taking out the item, it wouldn’t lock.
It took me a minute to see why: The other sliding door in the cabinet had slipped open. I closed it. The lock clicked.
In Aisle 8, I got an “unexpected error” message. I logged off and logged in again. That time, the app unlocked the cabinet with unexpected fanfare. A bell rang and a recorded voice said, “Thank you for shopping at CVS.”
I went on to Aisle 10. At the toothpaste cabinet, there was another “unexpected error.”
That was when I noticed that the cabinet I was trying to unlock was already open.
Weather
Today, expect a mostly cloudy sky and a high near 53. Tonight, the sky will turn partly cloudy, and the low will be near 39.
ALTERNATE-SIDE PARKING
In effect until Friday (Losar).
The latest New York news
The money from congestion pricing is rolling in
Of the $48.6 million, the M.T.A. counted $37.5 million as net operating revenue, money that will go toward financing a number of major transit repair projects. The rest will pay for expenses related to installing cameras and other equipment to record and process the tolls.
Jai Patel, the co-chief financial officer of the transit agency, said that 95 percent of the tolls were recorded in the peak period, from 5 a.m. to 9 p.m. on weekdays and 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. on weekends. “That seems like a big number,” Patel said, “but the program itself is to reduce congestion, and so peak tolls would be best.”
She also told an M.T.A. committee meeting on Monday that congestion pricing was expected to generate about $500 million in revenue during its first year.
The M.T.A. will leverage the money, borrowing significantly more in municipal bonds. Its planned projects include modernizing subway signals, some of which were installed during the Depression; making stations more accessible for riders with disabilities; and extending the Second Avenue subway line to East Harlem.
Those projects may be put on hold if the Trump administration succeeds in rescinding the congestion pricing program. And a protracted legal fight with the federal government could scare away investors, said Ana Champeny, the vice president for research at the Citizens Budget Commission, a civic watchdog group.
“The market may have a different take on how risky they consider congestion pricing now,” she said, noting that it was unusual for the federal government to renege on an agreement for a program like congestion pricing. The Biden administration approved it in November, after President Joe Biden lost the election.
METROPOLITAN diary
Halloween on the A
Dear Diary:
It was Halloween a few years ago, and I was on an A train traveling from Brooklyn to Manhattan. Most of the passengers in the car were in costumes that included Prince, Elvis, Madonna and a stuffed toy. No one was talking, and everyone seemed to be traveling alone.
At one point, three young men carrying a boom box got on the train and took positions as if getting ready to put on a show that was most likely going to include somersaults.
As soon as the boom box clicked on, all of the costumed passengers jumped up and started to dance. The would-be acrobats clicked off the music.
No, no, sit down, they said. We are trying to make a living here.
Everyone sat back down, laughing. Then the box clicked on again, the costumed passengers jumped up to dance again and the acrobats asked them to sit down again.
The sequence played out three more times before the young men finally gave up and went to another car.
We all kept laughing.
— Carol Williams. Illustrated by Agnes Lee. Send submissions here and read more Metropolitan Diary here.
Welcome to Day 2 of the Metropolitan Diary challenge, part of our celebration of the column’s 50th anniversary. On Day 1, we gave you tips for identifying your New York City story. Today, we’ll help you write it. (Missed Day 1? It’s not too late to start.)
What makes for a good Diary? It’s simply a good story that happens to be set in, and capture, the essential New York-ness of the city. While this isn’t a full writing course, we do have guidance on the kinds of elements that the submissions we publish include. They typically have: a beginning, middle and end; sharp details; catchy dialogue; a bit of surprise; some humor, warmth or emotion. But there is no formula, so flouting these loose rules can be worthwhile.
Don’t worry if you don’t think of yourself as a “writer.” Focus on being a “storyteller.” Pretend you are telling your story to the person who’d most appreciate it, using whatever conversational language or pacing that would hold their attention. Do it out loud if you want, maybe give that person a call and tell them your story (or tell it to them again). Then write it down.
That’s the big picture. For more tips, read on.
Here is an example of a published Diary that we (and readers) really liked, and a few thoughts on why that may help crystallize yours.
Unacceptable
Dear Diary:
I went to a new bagel store in Brooklyn Heights1 with my son.
When it was my turn to order, I asked for a cinnamon raisin bagel with whitefish salad and a slice of red onion.2
The man behind the counter looked up at me.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I can’t do that.”3
— Richie Powers
One of this item’s best qualities is that it is short and snappy. Only 53 words! Although we will use stories of up to 300 words, many don’t need to be that long and the column doesn’t work if we don’t have a mix of long, medium and short, so we are always looking for stuff like this. Here’s another one!
At Attention
Dear Diary:
It was December 1967. I had just finished basic training at Fort Dix in New Jersey and was traveling to Boston in uniform. For reasons I no longer recall, I stopped in New York City on the way.1
Walking on the Upper East Side2 in a snowstorm, I spied another man in a uniform. He was older, and his cap bore the familiar gold band that identified him as an officer.
I rendered a snappy salute. It was not returned. 3The uniform was unfamiliar, so I guessed he was a foreign officer. Military courtesy still required me to salute.
A little farther down the street, I encountered another officer and offered another salute that went unacknowledged.4 His uniform was strange to me as well.
The third time it happened, the man I saluted ignored me while holding the door for a couple 5on their way into a large apartment building.
I realized I had been saluting doormen.6
— Stephen Salisbury
To get your storytelling muscles going, think through or jot down the answers to some of these questions.
Let’s start with setting the scene.
- When and where in the city did this happen? Is this place well-known?
- Was there anything particular about that point in your life that’s relevant?
- What did you see, hear, smell? Was there something notable about the weather?
Now, let’s move to the middle, the meat of the story.
- Did you have an exchange with someone?
- What details are important to how events unfolded, especially in setting up the ending?
And now, the end.
- What’s the resolution? Is there a punchline?
- Does the story end with a sense of shared humanity or some other warm feeling that lingers? You don’t need to name it. A good description will often allow readers to feel it too.
- Why has this experience stayed with you?
- Lines like “and that’s why I love New York” are almost always unnecessary.
That’s it. Keep your story simple and use the kind of plain language you use in conversation. You are sketching a moment in time. The details are important. Let them move the story along. Have fun and good luck.
Once you’re done, read through what you’ve got. What details are less important and can be left out? (Remember, there is a strict 300-word limit.)
Write your Metropolitan Diary however you like, on paper, on your phone or wherever! When you’re happy with what you’ve written, put your diary entry into the box below, fill out your information and submit it. You might just hear from me about including it in a future column.
This is the official submission form, so make sure to double-check your work before hitting submit.
That’s it! Submit your Metropolitan Diary.
By transmitting your submission, you grant The New York Times Company a perpetual, royalty-free license to use the submission in any medium. They may be edited, and may be republished and adapted in all media. You may reprint your story elsewhere after it appears in The Times.
65.
In or about and between December 2023 and April 2024, both dates being approximate and inclusive, within the Eastern District of New York and elsewhere, the defendants MALIK BEASLEY, also known as “Beas,” “Bease,” “MB” and “5,” WILLIAM BROWN, also known as “Willo,” EDWARD DAVIS, also known as “Ed,” “ED” and “E Davis,” ROBERT GORODETSKY, also known as “Rob,” ERNESTO PLASCENCIA, also known as “Ernie,” “Erny,” “Ernie P” and “Erny P,” and PAOLO ZAMORANO, also known as “PZ,”
together with others, did knowingly and intentionally conspire:
(a)
to conduct one or more financial transactions in and affecting
interstate commerce, which transactions in fact involved the proceeds of specified unlawful activity, to wit: (i) wire fraud, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 1343 and (ii) sports bribery, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 224, knowing that the property involved in the transactions represented the proceeds of some form of unlawful activity, and with the intent to promote the carrying on of the specified unlawful activity, contrary to Title 18, United States Code, Section 1956(a)(1)(A)(i);
(b)
to conduct one or more financial transactions in and affecting interstate commerce, which transactions in fact involved the proceeds of some form of unlawful activity, to wit: (i) wire fraud, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 1343 and (ii) sports bribery, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 224, knowing that the property involved in the transactions represented the proceeds of some form of unlawful activity, and knowing that the transactions were designed in whole and in part to conceal and disguise the
19
How can people possibly afford to live in one of the most expensive cities on the planet? It’s a question New Yorkers hear a lot, often delivered with a mix of awe, pity and confusion.
We surveyed hundreds of New Yorkers about how they spend, splurge and save. We found that many people — rich, poor or somewhere in between — live life as a series of small calculations that add up to one big question: What makes living in New York worth it?
Weixun Hu enjoys what might sound like the ultimate professional perk. New Yorkers pay some of the country’s highest taxes on their income, more than $12,000 on average per person between state and local governments. But Mr. Hu’s income tax this year? $0.
That’s because Mr. Hu, 32, who was born in Guangzhou, China, conducts social development research at an international organization, where most employees are exempt from national income taxes or reimbursed for the cost. His gross and net income are one in the same; he earns roughly $110,000 after his insurance and pension contributions.
Mr. Hu became one of New York City’s 3.1 million foreign-born residents nearly three years ago, after reassignment from a post in Bangkok in the summer of 2023. But he quickly ran into a hurdle: finding an apartment with no credit history, no tax returns and no one to co-sign a lease.
“It sounds very cool that you don’t pay taxes,” Mr. Hu said. “It also creates a lot of problems.”
He discovered that many of his co-workers landed in a handful of pricey residential developments including Stuyvesant Town. Yet renting there felt worlds apart from Thailand’s capital city, where a luxury studio in a high-rise condo with a rooftop infinity pool and premium gym might run $600 per month.
So he found a studio in Long Island City, Queens, where he has in-unit laundry and falls asleep to the sound of waves hitting the shore near Hunters Point South. His employer subsidizes $700 of his $3,900 rent, and utilities and internet cost about $150 monthly.
“It’s much better value compared to renting in Manhattan,” he said.
Saving for Tomorrow
A good deal of young adults in New York City don’t know how to drive, and expect to remain renters for most of their lives. Not Mr. Hu.
He puts away $2,000 or so a month into a high-yield savings account, aspiring to buy a car. His sights are set on a Mazda CX-5. But he expects he’ll need to pay upfront in cash, another consequence of lacking a credit or tax history — and it’ll take about three more years to build up enough.
Eventually, he wants to own a home. “I know most people in New York City don’t care,” he said. “But for me, it’s very important.”
Mr. Hu also supports his parents in their retirement, sending about $3,000 every three months. As their only child, he feels both a sense of guilt for living about 8,000 miles from home — and an obligation to pay them back for their sacrifices.
“People will say, ‘Oh, you’re single. You don’t have a wife. You don’t have kids,’” he said. “‘So all your money is yours.’”
“And I’m like, ‘Excuse me, my parents are still alive.’”
In other ways, though, Mr. Hu fits the profile of an everyday bachelor: He rarely cooks meals at home. “My oven is basically storage space.”
Rather, he searches for affordable deals on Too Good To Go, a popular app where restaurants sell excess food at a discounted price. His No. 1 spot is Chinese Musician in Greenpoint, which offers a three-course meal for $9.
Sometimes, Mr. Hu does the $16 tonkotsu ramen at Nishida Sho-ten on 49th Street for lunch, an $8 lamb over rice meal for dinner from the halal truck in front of Bellevue Hospital or a hot dog for $3.25 from Gray’s Papaya. He’ll swing by the Dollar General in Astoria to stock up on his favorite drink, Coca-Cola Orange Cream.
And he saves up for an upscale dining experience every couple of months. He recently feasted at the Michelin-starred chef Daniel Boulud’s steakhouse, La Tête d’Or, where he spent roughly $300 and ordered what he called the standout filet mignon.
The Lions Over the Knicks
For any sports buff, it’s an incredible time to live in New York City.
But for Mr. Hu, ticket prices to see the Knicks play at Madison Square Garden felt “a little bit off-putting” — and that was even before their championship run. So he started religiously following basketball at Columbia, going to games that often run $10 to $12 on the Morningside Heights campus.
Yankees games, where a 400-level seat might run $45, are a no; he opts to watch the Columbia Lions up close at Robertson Field in Inwood without charge.
He is willing to spend up to about $300 on some singular sports showdowns. He can still recall how Kylian Mbappé flew down the field at MetLife Stadium during a Real Madrid match against Borussia Dortmund last summer.
Typically, though, he elects for low- or no-cost events like this spring’s edition of the Madison Avenue Gallery Walk.
And he regularly joins free lectures at the Asia Society, where he has a complimentary membership through his employer, and at local universities like N.Y.U., where he’s met the minds behind two of his favorite video games, The Elder Scrolls and Monument Valley.
A Sense of Wanderlust
Ever since Mr. Hu can recall, he’s felt a magnetic pull to experience the world. And few things embody such a yearning as aviation.
He sometimes goes to Canarsie to watch planes land at Kennedy International Airport, studying the way pilots pull up the nose of their aircrafts and slow the descent before touching down. He’s even found others who share his passion on walks in the neighborhood.
And traveling draws him even closer to his hobby.
He spent $4,400 on a trip to Guangzhou last June to fly for the first time in an Airbus A380, the only full-length double-deck aircraft in the world. Qatar Airways is one of the few airlines that still has an active fleet — so Mr. Hu arranged his trip by way of Doha.
“Some people treat it as bragging,” he said. “But no, it’s just to admire such an incredible machine that’s very rare to be seen these days.”
“It’s a weird, niche hobby, but I’m happy spending my money on it.”
As a young man living in his seventh country — after Belgium, China, Italy, Poland, Thailand and the United Kingdom — he appreciates that as “a foreigner in this city, you don’t have to worry about whether you stand out.”
He’s relished exploring from Crown Heights to Jackson Heights, taking the train to a random stop and popping into bodegas to chat up the owners. He considers Staten Island — and its Chinese Scholar’s Garden in Snug Harbor where adult admission costs $5 — to be a hidden gem.
And when he boarded the U.S.S. Bataan during a past Fleet Week, he felt obliged to tell a Marine that he was Chinese. “He said: ‘Oh, no worries at all. Everybody can be an American’.”
“To be honest, I still don’t think it’s a value option for the money,” Mr. Hu said of New York City. “But there’s something so unique, and I think it’s that inclusiveness.”
“You don’t need to go to the world,” he said. “The world comes to you.”
We are talking to New Yorkers about how they spend, splurge and save.
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