On my bike ride yesterday evening I saw that the news store on Las Olas had closed. It was once as much a part of the street as the Floridian a few doors down. People would pick up a paper - the New York dailies and a few foreign papers were always displayed outside - and then go for breakfast.
For years it was run by a cheerless woman, the opposite of the friendly neighborhood fixture. You didn't dare open any of the magazines. Then a year or so ago a new owner took over. Many of the magazines disappeared, but he added used books, including a shelf of "local authors." People came in, he said, mainly for lottery tickets.
"Everybody's now reading online," a man sitting outside the barbershop explained. But you don't swap gossip with neighbors on the Internet. For that - now - your options are more limited: go out for breakfast, or get a haircut.
