Holiday shopping is stressful, what with your family members asking for bad gifts and the crowded stores and the people waiting to steal your credit card information from online shopping sites. We do what we can to help with our gift guides, but we can’t do it alone. So, the DUMBO Business Improvement District is stepping in to just hand out free DUMBO cash to that’s legal currency at participating businesses in the area. All you have to do to get it is exist in DUMBO while they’re giving it out.
Seriously, yeah, it’s free money. Free money with a couple restrictions on it related to where you can spend it, but if you want to be a Grinchy nitpicker about being given free $20 bills then you can just close this tab. For the rest of you, be aware that by following the DUMBOBID Twitter and Instagram accounts, you can see when and where they’re planning on doing their money drops. What’s it look like when they’re doing these drops? Like this:
If you get your hands on one or two of these elephants, you’ll have $20 in DUMBO Dollars, which you can spend at stores like Jacques Torres’ chocolate shop, Mouth (who had a gift recommended in our foodie gift guide), Melville House, powerHouse Arena, Trunk and 22 more local businesses. The DUMBO BID’s Twitter account seems to suggest that today they’ll be dropping some cash at the corner of Main and Water some time around noon, so if you work in the neighborhood, maybe plan to go out for lunch then. Just look for the terrifying man in a suit and elephant head mask standing around, as he is the herald not of the End Times but of a bunch of free money raining down.
If you miss it today, keep following the accounts though, because the plan is to give away 150 DUMBO Dollars that you can use between now and Valentine’s Day. Just, you know, don’t knock over and old person or a child running to grab an elephant.