Downtown Goes Dark on Foursquare

By Sam Biddle

As saltwater poured into Manhattan, Manhattanites fled to higher, electrified ground like Wi-Fi rats. But other than tweets, we had no proof—until now. New Yorkers’ Foursquare checkins, charted by the company itself, show a massive exodus northward, out of the Dead Zone and into techie comfort.

The difference of only a few days—from October 27th, the Saturday before the storm, and this past Wednesday the 31st once refugees had relocated, is immense. Geek droves poured uptown and into Brooklyn, leaving the powerless stretch beneath 34th street appropriately bleak for Halloween. Hard to imagine what the stragglers were actually checking into, other than creepy alleys and broken ATMs.