Hi! I'm a student of Politecnico, a university in Milan, Italy. I'm studying Design, and I read the Gibson book "Pattern Recognition" for a Strategic Design course. It's the first Gibson book I read, and I found it very strange but fantastic because it opened the door of a new world unkown. About the book I had to do a specific reasearch about Dean & Deluca, a brand that it's mentioned, during the story. I found information about their products on the web. The problem is that I'm in Milan and so it's very difficult to find specific information about people who frequent this place, their habits, their social class. Maybe there's a community or something similar.Can anybody help me?!!Is there nobody who can have the real mail of William Gibson?!Thanks a lot!!! Edo
Originally posted by jimiedo: Hi! I'm a student of Politecnico, a university in Milan, Italy. I'm studying Design, and I read the Gibson book "Pattern Recognition" for a Strategic Design course. It's the first Gibson book I read, and I found it very strange but fantastic because it opened the door of a new world unkown. About the book I had to do a specific reasearch about Dean & Deluca, a brand that it's mentioned, during the story. I found information about their products on the web. The problem is that I'm in Milan and so it's very difficult to find specific information about people who frequent this place, their habits, their social class. Maybe there's a community or something similar.Can anybody help me?!!Is there nobody who can have the real mail of William Gibson?!Thanks a lot!!! Edo
Hi J
D&D are a New York city institution, they started off as a high class Delicatessen in Greenwich Village and have now expanded to about a dozen storefronts across NYC & the US. Their big store down in Soho is a one stop operation with a fresh fishmonger, butcher, bakery, fresh fruit and an Espresso bar that would make a Milanese feel right at home. Here is a link to their website, which tells you a whole lot more about them.
LN
“In the middle of the journey of our life I came to myself within a dark wood where the straight way was lost.”
Dante Alighieri
Posts: 1493 | Location: Anywhere there is WiFi | Registered: March 30, 2005
Thank you for the answers, but my problem is still unsolved, because I need to know more about what kind of people frequents that place or people, maybe from NYC, that has gone to Dean & Deluca and can describe sensations and feelings that it transmits, or people who have a passion for it. I know that a Tv serial called FELICITY takes place in this bar, so maybe there's a community about it, I don't know, I'm trying to find information that I can't find on the official site or other sites, because my teachers are very fussy. Is there someone of New York who can describe it? So thanks for the attention, please help me!!!
Try emailing one of the bloggers who mentions it on their site. Of course there is a huge risk that their primary customer base is not to be found in the blogosphere.
Or send an email directly to Dean & DeLuca, and tell them what you are working on. I'm sure they could tell you far more about their customers than WGB'ers, and they might even be flattered enough to do so.
Ppl who frequent D&D are mostly snobby SOHO artsy types and ppl who work in businesses around. Good example is Mercer Hotel, which is home away from Paris for Marc Jacobs. It isn't special; it doesn't transmit any feeling except the freezing cold from white 1' x 1' tiles on the floor. It's just a successful business due to location. It's right on Broadway but they still pay their employees $7 an hour, which is, pretty much shit. I've had better salads made by Mexicans in Queens. Don't get carried away by this illusion of meaning. But then again, if you are studying design (even worse ... "strategic design") you are a lost cause.
Originally posted by unhappy: Ppl who frequent D&D are mostly snobby SOHO artsy types and ppl who work in businesses around. Good example is Mercer Hotel, which is home away from Paris for Marc Jacobs. It isn't special; it doesn't transmit any feeling except the freezing cold from white 1' x 1' tiles on the floor. It's just a successful business due to location. It's right on Broadway but they still pay their employees $7 an hour, which is, pretty much shit. I've had better salads made by Mexicans in Queens. Don't get carried away by this illusion of meaning. But then again, if you are studying design (even worse ... "strategic design") you are a lost cause.
jimiedo, please do not be put off by the nature of this post. It appears rude and unkind, and generally we are not like that here on the good 'ol WGB. I wish I could help you more with the D&D question, but the only reference I have is of the guy in American Psycho (novel, not film), using a jar of italian seasoning salt from there, to torture somebody with. Perhaps not the ideal reference for your research.
Frankly I'd never heard of the place before, but the movie references here indicate a certain snobby reputation, appropriate for the upscale psychotic. Shrug.
jimiedo, do you have access to cable tv or a DVD rental place? Find some episodes of SEX & THE CITY. That should answer some demographic questions for you.
Or episodes of Felicity. The main character had a job there for a portion of the series. Stricken from the record because I bothered to read the thread.
There's a Dean & Deluca in the Georgetown neighborhood in DC. It's less a "bar" and more a grocery store that has an attached coffee shop. Presentation is nice and the food is fresh. But it's been overshadowed by larger chains like Whole Foods and Harris Teeter, which do the fresh/organic thing on a bigger scale.
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Posts: 5029 | Location: Knoxville, TN, USA | Registered: January 12, 2003
