I'm the founder / CEO of Etsy, and I'm good friends with Greg, the fella behind the Mt Morris project. He's an amazing guy. He's well over 6 feet tall, wears overalls every day, and does most of his business from his pickup truck.

I've learned more about business & integrity from folks like him than anyone else.

This is what true creation of value is like. The regentrification of old abandoned places. These streets have a lot of appeal and make a beautiful livable town. What I like in particular is these places were built in the days when things were built for walkability.

I wish him well, because his success will lead to more of these.

I went to school at Cornell, which isn't too far from the town in the article. There are dozens of other towns like this in central New York, and the larger cities like Rochester, Syracuse, Binghamton, and Elmira aren't doing that well either. It's great to see someone trying to stop what feels like inevitable decline.

EDIT: It's also nice to see him running it as a business, rather than a creepy charity case as happened in Aurora, NY:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurora,_Cayuga_County,_New_York...

What's with leaving the lights on overnight? Isn't that environmentally unfriendly or something?

I conceive that it might be for ambiance purposes. Main street looks more attractive to people coming out at night to go to the restaraunt or similar if it is lit up.

I don't know the motivation behind it, but I know that well lit areas are less likely to be vandalized. No it isn't environmentally friendly, but the alternative is muggings, larceny, assaults, etc.

Creating and benefitting from positive externalities. Good strategy to keep in mind.

Another point of view: If lots of registered people link to interesting NYT stories, it might a) entice more people to register, and b) encourage NYT to continue the service.

There's nothing wrong with the service, it's just something that you personally don't care for. It's lima beans for me; can't stand the little things.

Pro tip: Get by the registration / paywall by searching for the article's headline on Google.

That doesn't work for multi-page articles like this one, though.

You know you can just open the link in incognito mode right?

Use BugMeNot.