.5:15 p.m. Weekdays: Best Reminder of the “New Economy”

A quick look at the NASDAQ is all it takes to remember that the quaint notion of a “new economy” is deader than Jerry Brown’s romance with Linda Ronstadt. Those halcyon days of the tech boom — when everything was going to change, and beanbag chairs were a symbol of a brave new economic paradigm — are just fuzzy memories now. Did people really believe the Internet was going to reconfigure the world’s business landscape? Were we high? But there is one place the new economy remains. It’s Sacramento Street in Berkeley where the New Economy Laundry continues to excel in the very old-fashioned pursuit of keeping clothes clean and well-pressed. You can’t download extra starch, after all. There is one big difference between the new economy and the New Economy Laundry, however: The laundry turns a profit.