Hurricane Irene Wreaks Havoc On One Man's Wall Street Commute

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As you may have heard, the East Coast got some rain this weekend, which affected a bunch of people's abilities to get to work. Goldman Sachs employees who reside in the city and work at 200 West were given vouchers for car service for this morning's commute, though, according to Heidi Moore, everything was booked by last night, and some people were left slumming it on the subway with Mayor Bloomberg or hoofing it downtown. Citi employees were given remote access to the network in order to work from home, while those determined to make it in got their pick from of a box of rollerblades, wrist guards, and elbow pads left in the lobby of 388 Greenwich on Friday afternoon, among other “transportation alternatives” they were offered. Many of those who live in Connecticut (and Westchester) and work in New York or vice versa most likely stayed put this morning, on account of Irene seriously fucking up the Nutmeg State, battering roads and putting the BarCar out of commission. Some of those who did get in shared a closer look at how the weather affected their routines, like Susanne Petronella, who didn't have time to put on her face.

Petronella, a floor clerk for GI Brokerage at the NYSE, lives in the borough of Queens. She drove into the city with four other people over the Brooklyn Bridge. "I'm usually still in bed right now," she said in front of the NYSE before 7 a.m., while smoking a cigarette. "My hair's not done. My makeup's not done."

One guy thought the lack of humans downtown was great, and welcomed whatever further natural disasters it would take to make this the norm.

Phil Prothro lives in Jersey City, New Jersey and left his home at the usual time, arriving in Manhattan by PATH train. "It was actually a pleasant commute," said Prothro, who works at GDS International. "No problems at all. It was on time and empty, and I was expecting it to be late and full." He said Wall Street was more empty than it normally is. "This is very unusual," he said, while waiting for an egg and cheese sandwich from a cart at about 7:40 AM. "It's how I wish it was every day."

Then there was Duncan Niederauer, whose morning was an absolute nightmare.

"The hardest part of getting to work this morning was the two blocks getting out of our street because there are trees down and a lot of flooding in New Jersey," said Duncan Niederauer, the chief executive officer of NYSE Euronext, which owns the New York Stock Exchange. Niederauer, who lives in Somerset County, New Jersey, spoke after being dropped off by a black sport utility vehicle at Wall Street and Broadway at about 6 a.m.

Do you have any idea what it's like 1) having to wait an extra 5 minutes for your driver to show up in the morning and 2) having to suffer through a hellish commute that forces you to bring out your inner backseat driver tendencies when all you want to do is plug in your Rosetta Stone German tapes and fantasize about Dick Grasso's package? Having to yell "No, no, no you should have turned left! Now we're going to have to go around because there's a fucking tree in the road!" and "I said right on Maple! Right you moron, right!" is no way to start the morning. He might as well have walked.

Traders Navigate Trees, Skip Grooming in New York Commute [SFGate via BI]
How Wall Street Prepared For Hurricane Irene [MarketPlace]

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...when Falcone and five LightSquared colleagues met over a meal of white-truffle pasta and Barolo at a Washington restaurant in January, they failed to come up with anything they could have done differently, according to a person who was there who asked not to be identified because the meeting was private.-- Falcone Waits For Icahn Doubling Down On Network When JPMorgan, which earned the most of any of the six banks over the four quarters, decided to thank employees for their performance this year, it sent 161,680 individually wrapped buttercream-frosted, chocolate chip, oatmeal-raisin and sugar cookies to retail branches and call centers in the U.S., U.K., Philippines and India.-- No Joy On Wall Street As Biggest Banks Earn $63 Billion Cooperman, 68, said in an interview that he can’t walk through the dining room of St. Andrews Country Club in Boca Raton, Florida, without being thanked for speaking up. At least four people expressed their gratitude on Dec. 5 while he was eating an egg-white omelet, he said.--Bankers Join Billionaires To Debunk 'Imbecile' Attack On Top 1% American International Group Chief Executive Officer Robert Benmosche, 66, a Kappa Beta Phi member who disclosed in October that he was undergoing treatment for cancer, was there. He looked energetic, the two attendees said. In 1930, the dinner was beefsteak. This year, the meal featured lobster salad, shrimp, pigs-in-a-blanket, lamb chops and pistachio ice cream.-- Wall Street Secret Society Kappa Beta Phi Adds Dealmakers With Lehman Rite Wall Street headhunter Daniel Arbeeny said his “income has gone down tremendously.” On a recent Sunday, he drove to Fairway Market in the Red Hook section of Brooklyn to buy discounted salmon for $5.99 a pound.--Wall Street Bonus Withdrawal Means Trading Aspen For Coupons The clam-juice cocktails at the private Stock Exchange Luncheon Club, where brokers lined up three deep at the raw bar, contained tomato juice, cooled water from boiled chowder clams, ketchup, celery salt and the option of a freshly shucked clam. Add vodka and they called it a Red Snapper.--How America Ceded Capitalism's Bastion To German Boerse Seizing Big Board As someone once said, you can find out a lot about a man or woman's character during moments of great crisis. Do they fall apart? Do they become shells of their former selves? Do the worst parts of them come out? Do they turn their backs on everything they supposedly once stood for? Or do they, even in moments of darkness, rise to the occasion and demonstrate the morals and values they held when times were good are the very same ones they choose to live by when times are bad? For Bloomberg News reporter Max Abelson, Hurricane Sandy was a test. Would he turn in an article containing few if any reference to the food people consumed during the natural disaster? Or would his commitment to bringing readers exhaustive details re: what his Wall Street subjects eat (see above, here, and here) burn ever bright, to the extent that sources and interviewees elaborating on their situation beyond provisions would find themselves cut off and told, "Just the food and drink, toots. I got a lotta calls to make"? Luckily for us, it was the latter. Herewith, an accounting of things stuffed down the gullets of Wall Street over the last two days: * Murry Stegelmann, Kilimanjaro Advisors: expensive wine, green tea. “I had to go to the wine cellar and find a good bottle of wine and drink it before it goes bad,” Murry Stegelmann, 50, a founder of investment-management firm Kilimanjaro Advisors LLC, wrote in an e-mail after he lost power at 6 p.m. on Oct. 29 in Darien, Connecticut. The bottle he chose, a 2005 Chateau Margaux, was given 98 points by wine critic Robert Parker and is on sale at the Westchester Wine Warehouse for $999.99. “Outstanding,” Stegelmann said. He started the day with green tea at Starbucks, talking with neighbors about the New York Yankees’ future and moving boats to the parking lot of Darien’s Middlesex Middle School. * Wilson Ervin, Credit Suisse: the most depressing breakfast ever. Erin...went to the bank’s office at 11 Madison Ave. afterward to work on evaluations of managing directors and financial regulation. He ate a lunch of Raisin Bran, coffee and a banana from the 7-Eleven downstairs, he said. * Pablo Salame, Goldman Sachs: sushi, the piece of which Abelson or his research assistant counted. He posted a picture of 21 pieces of sushi on a Twitter account in his name on Oct. 29. “Only in NYC, Seamless Sandy sushi delivery in TriBeCa, Monday 730 pm,” the post said. * Wilbur Ross, WL Ross And Co: a painting. “I was scheduled to come back Sunday night, and I decided not to, because everything during the week would be canceled anyway,” said Ross, chairman of private-equity firm WL Ross & Co. “I’m stuck in Palm Beach.” He stayed in touch with colleagues using a fax machine along with phone and e-mail. His Florida home includes a painting by Rene Magritte of petrified blue apples, an image that is also depicted on a custom-made Van Cleef & Arpels watch he owns, he told Bloomberg News this year. * JPMorgan employees: many of the culinary delights its cafeteria offers on a regular basis but NO DUMPLINGS. JPMorgan, which sent out more than a dozen hurricane updates to its employees featuring detailed weather maps, kept parts of its 270 Park Ave. cafeteria open yesterday. Danishes and scones were available near the salad bar, and the bank’s deli had sandwiches with grilled vegetables. The dumpling bar was closed. Wall Street Finds Sandy Silver Lining In Wine, Monopoly [Bloomberg] Related: Things People Have Eaten in the Presence of Bloomberg Reporter Max Abelson [Daily Intel]

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What's next? We have some theories.

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According to some, "payday someday in the future" > payday now anywhere near finance.

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