Speaking of Starbucks as a community symbol

From Wednesday's New York Times, laments for the closing of a downtown Newark Starbucks:

When a Starbucks opened on Broad Street here almost eight years ago, it was not seen as a bland new spigot of a corporate coffeepot, but as a gathering place whose very existence would have seemed impossible a decade before, a symbol of a knocked-down city’s attempts to get up.

So when Starbucks announced last week that the Broad Street branch would be among the 600 stores that the coffee company is closing around the country, the reaction here was especially emotional, a mixture of anger, disappointment and frustration.

“They’re not going to close the one on Wall Street!” one man exclaimed.

The closings of hundreds of the coffee chain’s branches have certainly caused consternation in other places. But the cafe in downtown Newark is in some ways unique, a high-profile sign to all the people who fear the city that life is normal — if one accepts that part of “normal” is the ability to buy a slightly expensive cup of coffee and a scone in the morning.