Threats of a heavy nor’easter, bringing heavy rainfalls and strong winds to Brooklyn over the weekend, have cancelled a number of key events in the hometown borough. Howard Kolins, longtime board member of the Atlantic Avenue Development Corp., noted “This uproots more than just the attraction of crowds. Many of the exhibitors aren’t available on an alternate date, but we’re certain to have a great event Oct. 4. It just takes a lot of extra work.”

Also uprooted this weekend: the Flatbush Frolic on Cortelyou Road, established in the 1970s; the recently revived Montague Open Streets, as well as the Neighborhood Tag Sale, in Brooklyn Heights; and both the Third Avenue Festival and Ragamuffin Parade in Bay Ridge.

Happy Friday in New York City, where the NYPD continues to investigate sightings of random people climbing out of the sewers.

Early this morning, an eyewitness called the police to report three men in bright clothing emerging from a manhole in Bensonhurst around 4:30 a.m. Reports like this have become common this summer and late spring, with officials speculating that the culprits are fishing for valuables after a storm or engaging in urban exploration. Just two days ago, officers arrested two people caught climbing out of the sewers on the Upper East Side.

The sightings stretch back to May, when multiple small groups were caught on camera entering manholes in Williamsburg, Gravesend and Astoria, sometimes wearing waders and carrying flashlights or headlamps. Since then, reports continue to pile up, with little information on who the people are, whether the incidents are related or what is drawing them underground.

A word of warning: If you or someone you know is considering prying open a manhole cover and exploring the city’s sewers this weekend, you may want to raincheck. A nor’easter is expected to blow through the region tonight and into tomorrow, bringing heavy rains, powerful gusts and some coastal flooding. Not a good time to be wandering around underground.

Then again, anyone up for some sewer scuba?

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Back in the ‘90s, online retail tycoon Jeff Bezos likened the internet to the Cambrian explosion, the evolutionary big bang roughly 540 million years ago when new forms of life suddenly proliferated. Some acquired eyes, shells, claws and spines. The vast majority went extinct. A few survived and changed the ecosystem forever.

The dot-com era felt a lot like that: online bookstores, portals, auction sites, search engines, grocery delivery, digital money and a thousand business plans that mistook having a URL for having a business. It was thrilling, absurd and expensive. But compared with what is happening now, Bezos’ Cambrian explosion looks almost quaint.

Today Americans file about 5 million applications to start businesses every year, up from roughly 3.5 million before the pandemic. That’s more than 13,000 attempted enterprises a day. Most are ordinary ventures: restaurants, contractors, online shops, consultants, cleaning services and people trying to transform a side hustle into an exit strategy. Most will not become Amazon.

The scale is the story, and so is the speed.

Read on to learn more.

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