Nostalgia Nod

For everyone who sorely misses the familiar local stores and markets, James T. Murry and Karla L. Murray have produced a photo collection of local New York storefronts that just makes us smile.

From butchers to knish makers to florists and five-and-dimes, they provide a luscious photographic review in their book "STORE FRONT: The Disappearing Face Of New York ." It is a massive 6+ pound historic New York City document of a quickly disappearing urban phenomenon.

There are four fold-outs that extend to a fabulous 51 inches. As local stores quickly disappear from cities everywhere, the new city seems more defined by what is gone than by what has arrived. We think that as the recession creates more and more uncertainty, we will find ourselves even more deeply moved by what has been lost.

This is not to say that we regret change, it is to say that change shifts our paradigms and it takes a while for our hearts to catch up. That seems as it should be.