Throughout the years, there have been many very close elections. For example, in 1876, Rutherford B. Hayes won the electoral vote for president of the United States over Samuel J. Tilden by one vote. In 1796, John Adams won by a mere 3 electoral votes.

Similar to these close races, StorageMart recently held a contest that was extremely close. The winner led by the narrow margin of just 2 votes. Ms. Gutman of Public School 172 in Brooklyn, New York, was voted the grand prize winner of StorageMart’s contest “Draw My Favorite Teacher.” [More]

Yesterday, a nor'easter hit New York City and blanketed the city with thick, wet snow and cold temperatures. The heavy snow downed power lines and broke tree limbs weakened by Storm Sandy. There are over 200000 new power outages in the area. While temperatures will get warmer for the weekend, this storm is just an hors d'oeuvre served before the full-course meal of winter settles in. [More]

Today is an important day in the news. Not only is it election day here in the United States, there is a lot of action going on in the self storage industry. Here's a roundup of only three items in today's news. [More]

StorageMart supports many local charities such as the Ronald McDonald House, the Habitat for Humanity, and Women in Need Inc. They also award scholarships, assist with adoption and foster care programs, and reach out and help animal shelters. Today, they started a different type of activity that supports the community surrounding their Brooklyn self storage facility. They announced a contest that benefits public schools. [More]

Safeguard Self Storage recently acquired its tenth facility. Their newest location is in Chicago and is located at 9001 West 47th street in McCook Village, 15 miles west of Chicago. Safeguard has 10 locations within the Chicago area and 63 stores nationwide. [More]

Safeguard Self Storage opened its twentieth storage business in the east Williamsburg part of Brooklyn. This makes the fourth location that has been opened within the last year. The facility is located at 930 Grand Street. Safeguard has 25 locations in New Jersey and New York. [More]

Two self storage companies are planting trees in an attempt to cause reforestation of areas of the world that are suffering from deforestation, such as Haiti, the Amazon basin, and tropical rain forests around the world. Watson & Taylor Self Storage, of Addison, Texas, announced this week that it will work with Trees for the Future to plant ten trees for every new self storage customer to rent a unit at their facility in the month of August. Likewise, iStoreGreen of Brooklyn, New York, plants a tree for every tenant through the Nature Conservancy. [More]

Nicholas Sprayregan began his fight to save Tuck-It-Away Self Storage from annexation by New York’s Columbia University in 2004, but the battle may now be drawing to a close. Last week Columbia received a green light from New York’s highest court to go ahead with its eminent domain expansion, taking over private properties in a Harlem neighborhood that the government has designated as a blight on the city. Columbia’s team of lawyers had argued that because the West Harlem neighborhood was considered blighted, ruling in the university’s favor would mean upholding the precedent set in 2009, when the court approved the use of eminent domain in Brooklyn. In that case, attorneys argued that the rights of property owners did not outweigh the community’s right to improve the neighborhood by building the $4.9 billion Atlantic Yards project. [More]

Christie's, the internationally famous art auction house, is expanding into the storage business. A Christie's subsidiary, Christie's Fine Art Storage Services (CFASS), has bought a 100-year-old Brooklyn, New York factory that it will convert into a high-security, climate-controlled fine art storage facility. The new fine arts storage facility, located in Brooklyn's Red Hook waterfront neighborhood, will open in June.

In addition to fine art, the new facility will be used to store antiques and other special high-end collectible items. The former factory has about 235,000 square feet of storage space. The space can be custom-designed to accommodate any size collectible, from a small photograph up to a vintage car. [More]