After the closing of Fontana Shoe Repair, it was only a matter of time before the next-door tailor closed up shop too. Now it's happening. According to this story in The Villager, Michael Alter's lease is up and he is packing it in. “I don’t want to work anymore,” he said. “I don’t want to work for the landlord. I can’t pay with my fingers so much money."
This is my tailor, the man who hems all my pants.
The Villager writes:
The landlord, Mark Scharfman, is asking $3,330 per month, and “who knows what the real estate taxes will be?” said Alter. “Bloomberg is killing small businesses.”
...He is considering putting in one more month, working through July, and then in the future might work a few days a week for someone else, just to keep busy. But he is ready to go.
Alter’s shop adjoins the now shuttered vacant space that shoemaker Angelo Fontana had to give up on Feb. 29 because of a steep rent increase from the same landlord...Now that both small spaces will be available, what next?
7 comments:
j-reaper! please stop. any chance of turning your reaper power off?
Ugh. Simply ugh.
Anyway, Yunnies don't need tailors. If their pants need hemming, they simply throw them away and buy new ones.
As for a replacement in those spots...Has to be something featuring expensive desserts.
Might I recommend a tailor who is truly a landmark of the EV, and does NOT do dry cleaning? Gino was recently forced to relocate to 14th St between Ave A&B next to the Bargain Mart from the spot on Ave A where he was for several dozen years. However the new location seems to be better for him than ever. For the first time I had to wait in line to get my pants hemmed.
You will never receive a ticket stub and your pants will never be ready the day he says they will be but he always finds them and eventually they all get done. He is never open before 5pm (but he is always there at 1am). He charges $5 for a hem and $7 with cuffs. The best deal in the city, if not the whole US.
gino is a great recommendation, thanks--and i did a post on him a while ago. will add a link here.
That terrific Greek taylor who, for years, occupied a tiny storefront in the Chelsea Hotel was forced out about a month ago. There are so few tailors left in this city! And so much coffee and so many ATMs! Shows where the values are.
Michael who is also my dry cleaner, tailor and giver of candy to my kids has been in a kind of purgatory for months. The outcome is not surprising, given his landlord. Nor is it surprising when the 2 townhouses across the street are listed for almost $20 million (for both), over double their sales prices of just 2 years ago. But who will take over Michael's and Angelo's spaces? Over half the storefronts on 9th btwn A and 2nd are vacant now....
Sorry I just noticed I posted twice about Gino. I guess I'm enthusiastic about someone whose been here 40+ years and still going strong.
The cleaners that you mention was, if I am on the right block, a thrift shop until the early 90's. It was run by a woman who had it stuffed to the gills with boxes of crap...well not crap, but there was an awful lot of stuff in that tiny little store.
Then, in the early or mid 90's Madi somehow managed to buy her out and operated the store for about a year or so until she couldn't keep up with the rent. She felt she could make more money by charging people each time she answered the question, "Where's the Starbucks?"
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