If you look only at this list and add up all the years in business represented, we lost approximately 6,926 years of New York City history in only a dozen years. And we know the real number is much higher than that.
Clearly, we need strong protections for the city's small businesses. Many of the closures were due to the impact of gentrification, either through rising rents, demolition for luxury development, or a decrease in business due to their neighborhood's up-shifting of demographics and values. A few closed for unrelated reasons, like the owner's death or retirement, but I included them all. I'm sure I've missed many--in part because I didn't start the blog until 2007. Please add them in the comments, and include the date and reason for closure if you can. Also, if you see any mistakes, please offer corrections. Thank you.
This list is a living document. I plan to add to it over time. Here's a nice quote about it from Kristin Iverson at Brooklyn Magazine: "For those of us who have lived in New York for a long time, perusing the list was not unlike looking through a high school yearbook, only finding out that practically everyone had died."
2013 (836 years)
Stile's Market: 26 years
Pushed out by landlord, to be demolished for luxury development
5Pointz, formerly Phun Phactory: 20 years
White-washed by owner, to be demolished for luxury condo towers
Famous Roio’s/Ray’s Pizza: 40 years
Building sold
Ray Beauty Supply: 50 years
Property seized by landlord
Vercesi Hardware: 101 years
Building sold to be demolished for luxury condos
D’Auito’s Bakery: 89 years
Unknown
Odessa Restaurant: 48 years
Building sold, gastropub to move in, now for rent
Splash gay bar: 22 years
Lack of business
Paradise Café: 20 years
Rent hike
Big Nick’s Burger and Pizza Joint: 51 years
Rent increase from $42,000 to $60,000 a month
Max Fish: 24 years
Rent increase
Joe’s Dairy: 60 years
Cost of doing business
Bleecker Bob’s Records: 46 years
Rent hike
Blarney Cove: 50+ years
Evicted for new development
Sofia’s Italian restaurant: 35 years
Lost their lease
9th Street Bakery: 87 years
38% rent hike, replaced by juice-cleanse and smoothie shop
Capucine’s Italian restaurant: 33 years
Rent hike
Rawhide gay bar: 34 years
Rent hike, to be turned into a pizza chain from California
2012 (1302 years)
Rocco Ristorante: 90 years
Lost lease to trendy restaurateurs, gutted and upscaled
The Holiday Cocktail Lounge: 47 years
Sold and gutted for a gastropub
Kenny’s Castaway’s: 45 years
Rising cost of business
McCullough’s Kiddie Park, Coney Island: 50 years
Lost their lease
Manganaro's Grosseria: 119 years
Sold and gutted for a more upscale restaurant
A Clean Well-Lighted Place: 36 years
Now an upscale boutique
World of Video: 29 years
Lost its lease
Chelsea Gallery Diner: 30 years
Forced out of Chelsea
Bill's Gay 90s: 88 years
Lost its lease to a trendy restaurateur, gutted and upscaled
Atlas Barber School: 64 years
Lost lease due to hiked rent, now a UPS
Prime Burger: 47 years
Lost lease when building sold
Lascoff Pharmacy: 113 years
Closed and gutted
Colony Records: 60 years
Closed when the new landlord quintupled the rent to $5 million
Movie Star News: 73 years
Rent hiked, turned into a luxury bathroom fixture store
Lafayette French Bakery: 30+ years
Evicted
Partners & Crime Bookshop: 18 years
Closed due to lack of business
University Diner: 60 years
Evicted
El Faro: 85 years
Possibly evicted?
Village Chess Shop: 40 years
Closed due to lack of business
The Stage Deli: 75 years
Rent increase
Lenox Lounge: 63 years
Landlord doubled the rent, given to upscale restaurateur
H&H Bagels: 40 years
Last location evicted
2011 (575 years)
Gansevoort Pumping Station, Premier Veal plant: 105 years
Evicted and demolished for new Whitney Museum and High Line headquarters
Polonia: 22 years
Probable rent hike
Auggie’s Coffee shop: 45 years
Could not afford the rent
The Original Ray's Pizza: 52 years
Legal dispute with landlord
Mars Bar: 26 years
Demolished to build luxury condos, to become a bank
Brownfeld Auto: 120 years
Evicted when landlord decided to sell for luxury High Line development
Chelsea Hotel: 127 years
Sold and closed to guests
Life Café: 30 years
Dispute with landlord over repairs
Elaine’s: 48 years
Death of owner
2010 (886 years)
Skyline Books: 20 years
Probable rent hike, replaced with a body waxing salon
JJ’s Navy Yard bar: 103 years
Evicted, sold, and demolished, replaced by hipster coffee
Telephone Bar and Grill: 22 years
Sold and replaced with a frat bar
Gino: 65 years
Closed when landlord raised rent $8,000 per month, turned into a cupcake bakery chain
Empire Diner: 34 years
Lost their lease
Guss’ Pickles: 100 years
Left the Lower East Side due to rising neighborhood rents
Shore Hotel: 107 years
Coney Island hotel, demolished by Thor Equities to make room for new construction
Fedora: 58 years
Closed by owner in old age, taken over by a trendy restaurateur, gutted and upscaled
Carmine's at the Seaport: 107 years
Closed when landlord raised the rent to $13,000 a month
St. Vincent's Hospital: 161 years
Closed and demolished for a billion-dollar luxury condo project
New York Doll Hospital: 109 years
Death of owner, no successor
2009 (613 years)
Arnold Hatters: 50 years
Unable to make rent after original location taken by eminent domain to build New York Times tower, replaced by 7-Eleven
Joe Jr.'s diner: 35 years
Lost their lease, now upscale coffee
P&G Bar: 67 years
Lost lease, gutted and replaced by upscale cafe
Amato Opera House: 61 years
Closed by the owner in old age, building sold
Love Saves the Day: 43 years
Closed in part due to high rent
Tavern on the Green: 75 years
Bankruptcy
Café Des Artistes: 92 years
Bankruptcy
Manny’s Music: 74 years
Bought out by Sam Ash, also later shuttered
Provincetown Playhouse: 91 years
Demolished by NYU
Biography Bookshop: 25 years
Rent hike, owners relocated as BookBook
2008 (821 years)
Jefferson Market: 79 years
Money trouble, now sales office for billion-dollar luxury condo project at St. Vincent's
Fazil’s Times Square Studio: 73 years
Closed for building demolition
Astroland amusement park: 46 years
Sold to Thor Equities for redevelopment
Donnell Library: 53 years
Closed and demolished for a luxury hotel
The Minetta Tavern: 71 years
Landlord raised the rent, gave lease to upscale restaurateur
Bobby's Happy House: 61 years
Building sold for a big-box chain store
Chez Brigitte: 50 years
Rent doubled, replaced by frozen yogurt chain
Cafe Figaro: 39 years
Lost their lease, became fast-food burrito chain and bank
Yankee Stadium: 85 years
Demolished and replaced with an upscale ballpark
Shea Stadium: 44 years
Demolished and replaced with upscale, corporate-named Citi-Field
Florent: 24 years
Closed due to rent hike, from $6,000 to $50,000 per month
Vesuvio Bakery: 88 years
Sold
M&G Diner: 40 years
Sold and shuttered
Cheyenne Diner: 68 years
Lost its lease, moved away
2007 (783 years)
Limelight: 24 years
Shuttered by police, reopened, eventually closed and converted to luxury shopping mall
The Roxy: 29 years
Shut down for conversion to luxury condos
Dojo’s Restaurant, 33 years
Rent hike
Gertel's Bakery: 93 years old
Sold, demolished for condo development
The Playpen Theater: 100 years
Sold and demolished for luxury hotel tower and Shake Shack chain
Chumley's: 79 years old
Collapsed
Jade Mountain: 76 years old
Death of owner
Moondance Diner: 74 years
Closed for condo development, moved to Wyoming
Kurowycky Meats: 52 years old
Closed due to lack of business
Copeland's: 49 years old
Victim of gentrification
Donuts Coffee Shop: 32 years old
Evicted
Sucelt Coffee: 31 years old
Rent hike
Teresa's Polish restaurant: 22 years old
Rent hike
Rose’s Turn: 56 years
Family sold building for $3.5 million
Coliseum Books: 33 years
Rent too high
2006 (373 years)
Cedar Tavern: 140 years
Demolished for condos, replaced with a body waxing salon
Gotham Book Mart: 86 years
Evicted
McHale's Bar: 62 years
Demolished for luxury condo tower
The Second Avenue Deli: 52 years
Rent increase, replaced with a bank
CBGBs: 33 years
Rent dispute, replaced by John Varvatos upscale boutique
photo via Satan's Laundromat
2005 (278 years)
Variety Photoplays Theater: 108 years
Demolished by the Toll Brothers for a 21-story condo tower
Fulton Fish Market: 170 years
Moved to the Bronx due to “the creeping conversion of Manhattan into a monstrous mall” --NY Times
2004 (319 years)
A. Zito & Sons Bakery: 80 years
Rising cost of business
The Bottom Line: 30 years
NYU raised the rent
The original Kim’s Video: 17 years
?
Jon Vie Bakery: 42 years
“a victim of soaring rents in a neighborhood populated as much by bankers as by bohemians.” --NY Times
Domino Sugar Factory: 150 years
Declining business, to be converted to luxury condos
photo via: Intersection's Flickr
2002 (127 years)
Ratner’s: 97 years
Cost of doing business
Madison Avenue Bookshop: 30 years
Lack of business
2001 (13 years)
Wetlands: 13 years
Building sold for luxury condos
'Seized by landlord' and 'evicted' means non-payment of rent.
ReplyDeleteThank you for compiling this important list, but after the "lamentations," what can be done? We live in a free market economy, so what's the plan to slow these losses? More landmarking? Zoning changes? Tax breaks to small businesses or to landlords who help them? We need solutions!
ReplyDeleteHere's what I suggested as solutions: http://vanishingnewyork.blogspot.com/2013/11/advice-for-mayor-bill.html
ReplyDeleteI forgot Silver Spurs diner, 34 years, major rent hike. Closed in past few weeks.
ReplyDeleteMama's Food Shop on Avenue B closed in the last 2 years -- 2012 I believe.
ReplyDeleteAnother sorely missed place: Chez Laurence at the corner of Madison and 38th. It was a special and unique patisserie/cafe where the owners went to work in the middle of the night to make the day's croissants and brioches. They also invented "espresso eggs," the lightest, fluffiest scrambled eggs, whisked in the steam of the coffee machine. A sign said: "Be continental if you're able, be friendly and share a table."
ReplyDeleteWhat a sad list. I bet your readers have many to add. I can think of plenty, but you should definitely add The Starlight Lounge, which closed in 2010 (eviction), and was around for 50 plus years.
ReplyDeleteWhen did the original Cooper Square Diner close? Quentin Crisp ate there every day. I grew up around the corner. Had chicken noodle soup with my father several times a week. Miss those old waiters and the plush pink booths.
ReplyDeleteomg, yes! when I first moved to the LES, my roomie took me there. He whispered "that's Quentin Crisp over there" and sure enough there he was! I was thrilled! I ate there 3 or 4 times a week for years after that.
DeletePink Pony and Max Fish on Ludlow....
ReplyDeleteWell, just about everything on Ludlow.
The Emerald Inn on the Upper West Side also closed this year after 70 years:
ReplyDeletehttp://instagram.com/p/Wztd0XI8-0/
Curly's Vegetarian Lunch beame extra seating for Artichoke Pizza, Old Devil Moon is gone, Kate's Joint is gone. East Village Veg spots were crushed.
ReplyDeleteHi the donut shop on 23rd and 8th ave closed in 2002. they served coffee in plastic inserts and I think a BLT for $1.75. that place was a hidden gem for writers
ReplyDeleteyour list is heartbreaking. - can you compile a list places to be preserved.
BOK LEI TAT SUPPLIES INC.
ReplyDelete77 Mulberry St
New York, NY 10013
Martial Arts supplies store in Chinatown for over 40 years. closed in 2008 due to rent hike.
this list is so sad. The Donut Shop on 23rd and 8th ave closed in 2002. i loved that place. they had plastic coffee holders with plastic cone inserts a BLT was appox $1.75. i kept talking about filming a documentary about that place and then it was gone. it was a people watching, writers dream. it was raw. it was grit. you saw the woman Lili Tomlin based the character of her one-woman play on there everyday. i don't know if that is a fact but if you put the 2 woman together - it would be hard to differentiate the two.
ReplyDeleteso many of theses places are our history our life our memories.
what can we do? can we make a list of the surviving places and fight for them?
What a depressing list. the last decade has felt to me like one long funeral.
ReplyDeleteI guess I'd add the Back Fence at Bleecker and Thompson. They were there 68 years.
it's all called progress or the "future" before these places, there were other places and before them, even older places that were shut to make room for the "new" places...it's as they say...time marches on...like it or not that's the way of the city, the world and of life....aftre us others will complain too....
ReplyDeleteThe Emerald Inn thankfully found a new home, at 250 W. 72nd Street: http://gothamist.com/2013/06/12/beloved_dive_emerald_inn_reopens_on.php
ReplyDelete2013: VINTAGE (bar and restaurant in Hell's Kitchen). No idea how long it had been there but I'd been going close to a decade. Huge Martini menu and beer list and really reasonable prices - reportedly the rent was hiked up 3times what they were paying.
ReplyDeleteVintage is gone???
DeleteVerchovyna Tavern (aka "Bar 81") on E. 7th St. closed on New Year's Day 2005. It closed, depending on who you ask, due to rising rent, rising cost of biz and a general incompetence & nonchalance when dealing with new marketplace realities. Bar 81 under various guises had been a functioning bar for decades. 9C (with its legendary Alphabet City Op'ry) closed when the smoking ban was phased in early in 2004
ReplyDeleteTonic on the LES. Wasn't there that long so maybe it doesn't belong on the list.
ReplyDeleteP&W Sandwich Shop in Morningside Heights--probably of no interest to most, but it was a fixture in that neighborhood.
Great list. very sad indeed. What ever happened to Unique Boutique and Antique Boutique on Broadway close to 4th St?
ReplyDeleteFood City. Columbus btw 94th & 95th, 44 years. Lost the lease. Supposedly being turned into 'town houses' has sat empty and unused since May. Lots of people in this neighborhood, elderly and otherwise depended on that supermarket for affordable groceries. How can they keep replacing supermarkets with apartments? Last time I checked people need to eat, no matter what their age or financial situation is.
ReplyDeleteDon't know if you received my last comment. Thank you for this astonishing list. To be added should be the Carnegie Hall Studios, 1894-2010, 116 years.
ReplyDeleteOwned by the City of NY, Mayor Bloomberg dedicated $ 32,000,000.00 in Taxpayer money to demolish the Studios, which were meant for artists of all disciplines. All 180 historic studios have been demolished, including sawtooth skylights on the roof of the building (meant for painters from the Arts Student League, originally.) which will be replaced by the "Sanford and Joan Weill Rooftop Terrace". The no-bid arch. contract was awarded to Natan Bibliowicz, Sanford Weill's Son-in-law. The only two Elected Officials to come to the tenants aide were Tony Avella and a City Councilman from Brooklyn, Bill de Blasio.
adding the roseland soon....
ReplyDeleteI'd add I Tre Merli and Barolo Restaurants on West Broadway, closed after 28 and 23 years of business, respectively. Soho institutions, lost like so many others to "rent issues" and the neighborhood's "evolution"....
ReplyDeleteThe Luna Lounge on Ludlow gone for a hotel, Acme Underground is a cocktail lounge, now Roseland Ballroom is gone too. Some places have changed so much that might as well have been demolished, they just kept the name like The Continental, Odessa.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion there is still a lot of history and culture left in Manhattan. Plus the city changes, it's the reality of the place, things come and go. I am sure people were lamenting the Polo Grounds as well. This said, I think the speed of gentrification and homogeneity and the weight of corporate real estate are unprecedented, especially downtown.
Pizza Box on Bleecker Street - one of the few pizza places with a garden and that also served wine. I'm not sure why it closed, but the venue is boarded up and probably will be converted into something upscale
ReplyDeleteDuring the mid seventies Julio was the delivery boy at Pizza Box. He learned to make pizza from the owner, Emilio. Years later Emilio retired and Julio bought him out. Julio ran Pizza Box until 2010. All the standing became a problem for his legs. Julio returned to his native country and his nephew took over the shop for two years. It has become a Spanish sandwich specialty shop. The big backyard is now canopy covered. It still retains a certain charm.
DeleteOh God.
ReplyDeleteIt reads like an incredible documentary poem.
Each name of an old friend on this list---like seeing their beautiful old face just slashed up.
Thanks for naming names and making it possible for us to read the names.
New York is being re-invented into a place that has no sense of place at all.
The Joe Jr's pictured was on 6th Ave., and it's gone. There's another on 3rd Ave, still there (for now).
ReplyDeleteI moved to 10th between 1st and A in 1984 and I have a soft spot for many of the vanished places in the EV (Downtown Beirut and Mission, anyone?), but...
ReplyDeleteWe humans imagine the moment in time we live in is somehow special. How would our great-grandparents feel about all the small businesses that were razed to make way for the places we feel attachment to?
Second, you can bemoan the recent prosperity that has transformed the city's landscape - especially if you have not participated - but how did you like the good old days? I got mugged in 1983 and I didn't like it. The subways were filthy scary and dangerous. I rode them because I had to. Now I ride them because they are the best way to get around. Alas, prosperity is a pendulum. The "good old days" will be back at some point. Rents are very affordable in Detroit, I hear.
"The Grand Tocino", an old style Italain restaurant on Thompson, had an incredible clientele of neighborhood people and local painters and writers. W. H. Auden went there for dinner every night during one period. A Village institution since 1919. Closed in 2001.
ReplyDeleteHere's some information on "El Faro", in the West Village. It was there for 85 years before it closed. Needed to raise 80K to correct code violations but if demographics hadn't changed, I don't think they'd have gotten into the hole. From ny.eater.com: "Apparently, the restaurant has received calls and emails of support from customers around the world since it closed....Lurgis explains that El Faro still has a devoted clientele, noting, "People have their packages delivered to us. It's like an extension of their house...We delivered food to some of our elderly [customers] and even brought them milk and bread if they couldn't leave home." (Imagine a new, trendy restuarant doing that!)
What year did "Elephant and Castle" on Prince Street between Sullivan and Thompson close? I always associated it with the invention of Soho and so felt nervous about encouraging the trend, but I think it became a sort of institution and we kids felt buzzy sitting in the window seats.
I remember it as the Grand Ticino, pronounced in the Italian manner with the "c" sounded as "ch". I could be wrong.
DeleteYou're correct, after the canton in Switzerland
DeleteCarnegie808 --You are so right about the loss of the Carnegie Hall Studios. This was a blow to the soul of the city.
ReplyDeleteNot just sad, but stupid and ignorant beyond belief. Bloomberg is a complete barbarian. No insult meant to barbarians.
The Roxy, sold for another Highline "hive". God I hate the High Line and I live in Chelsea, it's just for Norwegian backpackers, just like MOMA is now, does anyone remember when MOMA was for New Yorkers and now it's only tourists?
ReplyDeleteOh and Splash on W.17th St.
Gays are boring yuppies with heads in their phones on Grinder just like the handbag girls on Bleeker.
Aphrodisia herb strore on Bleecker St.
ReplyDelete2010
World of Video on Greenwich Street, TLA Video on 8th St., whole swaths of stores of 8th St., 14th St. at the southern end of Union Square, 23rd St., Bleecker Street, Hudson St. between Christopher & 14th, the great Clocktower Gallery (41 years), much of Williamsburg, Greenpoint, etc.
ReplyDeleteYou can see it happening in Crown Heights, Bedford Stuyvesant, Bushwick, and on and on. Relentless. It's more than "the market" or even predatory capitalism. It's conscious policies rigged to benefit rich people, wealthy real estate developers and high end businesses. A top marginal federal tax rate of 75% on salaries and capital gains would dent a lot of this crap, as would zoning policy, and so much more. Given that our Congress, Supreme Court and even the presidency are all tools of the plutocracy, the change will have to come from we the people.
Fresh Pond Diner in Ridgewood, NY closed after 73 years to make room for a TD Bank in 2003
ReplyDeleteBlimpie at 4th Avenue and 13th Street - at that location for over 40 years - recently went there to eat and found it being gutted.
ReplyDeleteThe common thread here is the rise of rent and property values (Bloomberg's main contribution was the property tax hike early in his term -that gets passed directly into rent), and I'm not sure how that gets reversed. City governmments love high rents and property values since it translates into tax dollars. No one has considered that high property values can choke the life out of a city (including eventually employment as businesses start to vanish), since there is no precedent for that happening until recently.
ReplyDeleteThe right approach at the local government level is reduced taxes, reduced spending, and just leaving businesses alone, essentially the liberatarian approach (I depart from liberatarian in that I think reducing inequality is also key), and unfortunately that doesn't seem to be the new Mayor's agenda any more than it was that of his predecessor.
For as long as I could remember, I wanted to live in NYC. I've visited a dozen or so times over the years but liked to think of myself as a visitor, not a tourist. During my last visit in 2007, we were waiting for our connecting train to NJ to our motel (like we could afford anything else?) and I noticed that 34th looked like a mall. When I wanted to move to NYC, it was because it wasn't like home. Now, that's all the tourists seem to want. :(
ReplyDeleteSome will be missed , but others were old and decrepid , and added nothing to NYC
ReplyDelete.
Nostalgia is all well and good , but there's more than a fine line between great stores and crummy ones , great diners and crummy ones , great buildings and crummy ones
Jeremiah, much appreciate your compiling this list yet it is only the iceberg's tip. The pieces--the businesses that are milestones in our lives and cultural emblems--are getting picked off at an accelerating pace. Along with them goes the architecture that housed them. Would be interesting to look back and see how much of the city was destroyed at a wholesale level. I grew up in Washington Market (now Tribeca)and the entire neighborhood west of Greenwich Street became an urban renewal area. Slightly before that, the entire World Trade Center site was a viable neighborhood (Radio Row, etc), and just a few decades prior, the Syrian Quarter was erased. Sigh.
ReplyDeleteTo John K
ReplyDeleteHere here. Even at a 75% tax rate the rich would still be. The World Wide Web is the culprit, anesthetising the populace (myself included) into believing we matter, hense the lack of real participation.
Oh God, you are bemoaning the loss of a Bliimpie? All of these places replace something before it. The city is not about permanence but everlasting change.
ReplyDeleteAnd Carnegie808? Ralph Lauren's wife had a studio there. If that is not a starving artist...
Thanks for the great job in putting this list together it is sad how much we have lost. Another important loss was the original McBurney YMCA on 23rd Street, replaced by luxury condos and a David Barton gym. This Y, reputedly the inspiration for the famous song, had been there for 98 years! Ed Hamilton
ReplyDeleteThere is a major new york city industry shrinking at this very moment. Over 100 jewelry manufacturers have gone out of business in the last twelve years in new yorks famous diamond district as well. Lots of losses on that block and not one single article ever mentioned this catastrophe.. I've spent 32 years on that street and I have one of only a few shops left. Keep buying foreign made products america cause your making this happen.
ReplyDeleteTo John K, yes so many stores on Hudson have closed but mine, The End of History, has been there for over 16 years and the only reason I'm still there is my wonderful landlord.
ReplyDeleteHe and his wife have always turned away the big names who came to them offering more money to push me out.
I even had them walk in the shop and offer to "buy me out" but I always told them to tell their corporate overlords that there wasn't enough money in their bank accounts to make me move.
Some landlords are good and understand the importance of small.
Those benefitting financially and otherwise, when an older establishment is destroyed justify it by saying, change is inevitable, everything changes. The question they never ask is: what are the consequences of that change? Is it for the better?
ReplyDeleteDoes it benefit the majority or a select bunch of wealthy people. The answer is obvious.
I would add Tres Aztecas on the corner of rivington and allen for over 15 years, landlord told the owner he did not want to renew his lease now an upscale bar
ReplyDelete...Waverly Inn. Formerly sleepy cool spot, closed and reopened as a private "club" restaurant complete with truffle mac and cheese that costs a month's garage rent for people in other parts of the country.
ReplyDeleteanon, i had dinner @ waverly in sept 08 & feb. 2009. anyone can go there. special people can make resevations over the phone. others have to come in person 1 or 2 days before to reserve. the only room that is held for special guests is the middle room. unless they have a table, which is rare. the conversatory next to that is lovely, & mostly locals go there. the front room w/the bar is tacky, thats where they put the bridge & tunnel, or the people you make fun of. thats proberly why they like to see who is making he reservation. theres a pecking order. owner grayson carter says the place is democatic anyone is welcome. btw, the food & service was great. maitre'd was a well know poet from poland, all gracious & nice people. not a private club. the only bs was the photographers outside. the places in the 1960s were much more snobby as i recall. AND they put the tacky people upstairs. OR didnt let them in @ all. i see waverly as a preserved place, looks the same to me as it did yrs ago.
ReplyDeleteI used to work at "Chain 5&10" on Second and 9th. Open for at least 50 years and the rent hike killed them to close. What an amazing East Village Stroe and I met EVERYONE working there!
ReplyDeleteO'Connors in Park Slope closed after 75 or so years. Original owner sold the building and business. My apologies if it's on this list somewhere a search didn't find it.
ReplyDelete+all the people who understand that times change.
ReplyDelete30-40 years is a good run for an independent retailer/restaurant. It means the father/mother ran it and the kids were either incapable, unwilling, or (gasp) educated enough not to HAVE to sustain a subpar business where they would have to work 80hour weeks.
This has very little to do with politics and more to do with the overall trends of a human population vis a vis progression in technology, health, and migration.
Silver Palace Dim Sum on The Bowery.
ReplyDeleteThe first giant dim sum place in Chinatown. Now gutted between The Bowery to Elizabeth to make way for a hotel.
"Rio Mar" on Ninth Avenue at the corner of Little West 12th Street.
ReplyDeleteSutton Clock Repair - 1 flight up on the corner of Lex and 61? He moved uptown. It had those gorgeous old clock faces hanging in the window. It's a sterile Melissa's cupcake operating room now.
ReplyDeletethe eclair, mocca, paprikas weiss, lutece, over the years, even stores like bonwit, alexanders, a&s, gertz, altman's, ohrbach's, korvettes, gimbels.....
ReplyDeletei think, it is the nature of life to wax and to wane, and each of us, must somehow leave their mark... even this blog remains, etched forever. the Wills we all know once said, "we receive each streaming moment, and tender it but for an instant.
only to surrender it to the inevitable past.
but indelible are the tender truths that in its moment
the present yields and leaves behind
in the ever present memory
of heart, and soul, and mind......." cheers
RINE: your post about losing manufacturing is very important. outsourcing transformed america, especially NYC. w/out clothing & jewelry factories, NYC is no longer an industrial center. so what is it now??? a TOURIST destination. it no longer feels real. btw, i am turned off to tourism, cheap travel.
ReplyDeleteThe Stoned Crow on Washington place closed in 2010 after 17 years due to rising rent.
ReplyDeleteYou can add the original Barnes & Noble AKA The Main Store at 5th & 18th. It won't survive 2014 I'm guessing.
ReplyDeleteLakeside Lounge is gone, as well.
ReplyDeleteI was one of those "lucky" kids that got a handshake deal on prince street for a small cash amount.
ReplyDeletethat was 2002, and that's late to the show, i know. but, through the years i watched my short block lose;
1. Vesuvio (noted and now a City Bakery),
2. Rocks in Your Head (great record shop, now a realestate office)
3. Untitled Bookstore (became a dog clothing shop,
4. Prince Street Copy Center (now a Belt store)
Now, who wouldn't give up all that for a corner storefront that hawks yogurt?
Does your blog or another have sort of an "endangered watch list" with a good lead time, so we can visit these places one last time before they go?
ReplyDeleteBobby, it's a good idea. I don't do it because I'm superstitious, afraid if I put something on the list, I'll doom it.
ReplyDeleteSomeone posted the comment that "We live in a free market economy..." if only this were true. The fact is that many of the changes have been the result of two mayors and their city councils offering special tax break incentives and zoning changes in favor of corporate investments. many of these deals have been done without public hearings and only 'after the fact' notices. Almost all of it outside of the reach of small and independent local businesses. These smaller entrepreneurs and other constituents have been treated like they lost 'fair and square' by being outbid, or by simply not being able to afford astronomical increases. No special incentives, no meetings with their government, no tax breaks to help them stay and grow. That's not a "free" market by any stretch of even the most inebriated the imagination.
ReplyDeleteThat insipid saying that "New York is about change" is nothing more than an extremely loose generality that entirely ignores how the city's economy and culture actually work, as is the statement that "it's a free market".
JJ Minhane said:
ReplyDelete"Some will be missed , but others were old and decrepid , and added nothing to NYC
.
Nostalgia is all well and good , but there's more than a fine line between great stores and crummy ones , great diners and crummy ones , great buildings and crummy ones."
This isn't a blog about nostalgia, this is a blog about the power of investment capital to drive people who live on on monthly income margins out of their family businesses to make room for 'profit centers' for 'investors'. There are fucking 7-11's on St. Mark's. Thank GOD they replaced the 'crummy' , 'decrepid' (sic) locally owned store that was their before. It's so great seeing the east village, et al, turned into a non-crummy place safe for NYU frat and sorority drink ups , a la The Telephone Bar now the 13th Step, of non-decrepid (sic) places that require 30 bucks just to eat lunch. Jesus Christ. Jeremiah's Vanishing New York isn't a nostalgic list, its a list of casualties, dead and wounded, from the class war that investment capital is winning every goddamned day. And it's turning New York into the same colorless, bland, consumerist shithole that every other city has become due to the need for investment capital to turn a profit by crushing small business.
The two most heartbreaking for me are the Holiday Cocktail lounge (arguably had to go because the sons were done with it) and St. Vincent's Hospital. Luxury townhouses where a hospital used to stand. A true sign of our age, and worthy of the profound prophetic scourge of any Jeremiad, including this list.
Name one place on the list, JJ, that 'added nothing' to NYC. They WERE NYC, it's not a game of addition and subtraction of 'value addedness'. That logic is a total reflection of the spiritual death caused by these closures.
It is true that NYC is a town of a lot of turnover and has been referred to by Sam Hamill in 'Downtown' as a city of nostalgia. But his retelling of the coming and going of business did not have to countenance the big chains like 7-11 and the massive amounts of real estate set aside for the global superrich. That is entirely new. And it makes New York more like Disneyland for the Rich and Lameass every day.
Lakeside Lounge, Kate's Joint, Footlight Records, Motor City.
ReplyDeletethank you brendan. you got it.
ReplyDeleteJ. Patelson music store on 56 st behind Carnegie Hall stage door closed 2010. Sold classical music scores and sheet music since before Carnegie Hall was there.
ReplyDeleteYat Sing Cleaners. I think they closed in 2012. The current owner had a picture of himeself (now more than forty) on a tricycle at two in front of the store, then owned by his parents. It broke my heart. And left me with no good cleaners.
ReplyDeletePopovers, an upper west side institution, 32 years, now gone too.
ReplyDeletePeople wonder why I, a native, don't want to live here anymore. and my answer is because "it" isn't here anymore.
New York is a cartoon version of New York, like the hotel in Vegas.
Brendan, I love you!
ReplyDeleteElk Candy Co. on 2nd Ave closed down as well as a bunch of old time Hungarian and German shops in Yorktown ...ahem...Upper East Side:
ReplyDeletehttp://shop.elkcandy.com/aboutus.sc
I can't recall what it was called but over on 56th street I think there was a mystery book store. It's been gone a while, but had been there a long time.
ReplyDeleteMysterious Bookshop shop owner Otto Penzler sold his 56th building and moved to to 58 Warren Street in trendy Tribecca.
DeleteBendix in Chelsea?
ReplyDeleteWent to Coliseum Books, Cafe Figaro and Chelsea Diner. Kind of sad. How many people can afford those rents. How many people are going to gorge themselves on frozen yogurt?
ReplyDeletebrendan--
ReplyDeleteGorgeously said!
His anyone considered that these businesses that are closing pushed out other "old time" businesses when they opened 30 or 50 or 70 years ago. They were the nouvelle "trendy shops" went they opened. 30 years is a very good run for an independent small business. Clearly, their business model no longer made sense for the location they were in. Something more "trendy" than they were will take it's place, and at some point they new business will no longer be popular and will close.
ReplyDeleteDoes it get more depressing than this? Ugh...
ReplyDeleteharriet f: ofcause a business that opened in 1962 replaced one that opened in 1932 & so on. the differerence is that most of these served the community. small businesses replaced small business in general. there were chain stores too but maybe like 20% & it was gradual. there were no box mega stores. all this crap started in the middle west, texas etc. now its world wide, gross.
ReplyDeleteIvy's Books and Murder Ink. Tower Records. Leshko's in the EV. Wild Lily Tea Room. Bendix diners. Don Hill's nightclub. Columbus Bakery. Some of the ones I miss. Can't get over Empire Diner or Florent.
ReplyDeleteYou included the original Kim's Video, but forgot about their St. Mark's Place store, now turned into some karaoke bar.
ReplyDeleteAlong with the Dojo, one of the places I miss the most every time I walk by.
Harriet F. is completely right about the cycle of old, fondly remembered places being pushed by the new that, in turn, turns into fondly remembered places that will be eventually pushed out themselves. And nostalgia works different into everyone's lifespan frame, of course.
ReplyDeleteBut this greed that moves most major corporations today wasn't such a huge, ubiquitous monsters a few decades ago, nor was it allowed to roam and rampage so freely.
Yes, many on this list were simply obsolete and died a natural death, but many other, maybe even more, were killed before their time when their business was perfectly alive and kicking, only to satisfy some heartless landlord's greed.
Bright Food Shop (17 Years) Landlord hiked rent- best restaurant in Chelsea!
ReplyDeleteBut many of these places were shit - things don't have value just because they've been there forever. People who move to cities can not expect to stay the same. If that's what you want, move to Paris, where the buildings are beautiful, but culture is dead.
ReplyDeleteHoward Johnson's in Times Square closed in 2005, demolished and replaced by American Eagle.
ReplyDelete"Migratory species are less aggressive than sedentary ones. Moving pre-empts dominance & hierarchies. Violence comes with settlement. Humans emotional need for a base/cave/port are shared with the carnivores (as opposed to the vegetarian primates who keep exploring on a perpetual pilgrimage.) The fit survive." -Bruce Chatwin
ReplyDeleteDonnell Library...
ReplyDeleteanyone remember Vegcity, that used to be on 14th street at 6th avenue? A great 24 veg/vegan diner. NYC used to be the city that never sleeps, where did all the all-night joints go?
ReplyDeleteBig Cup on 8th avenue, also gone. a colorful, fun, social place that defined Chelsea. Now Chelsea sucks.
~Tommy M.
7A at 7 and A is done for at the end of this month
ReplyDeleteMissing Chinatown Fair:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/13/nyregion/13critic.html
Just noticed today that Grey's Papaya on 8th St. @ 6th Avenue is gone gone gone. I had a hot dog there about 2 weeks ago. They were the best hot dogs in the world, really!
ReplyDeleteSeen through nostalgic eyes, sure, the transformation of ones personal landscape is cause for sadness, but this is hardly new and disingenuous to attribute so pejoratively to one administration. There is reason we no longer have blacksmiths in New York, typewriter repair shops, or dirt streets for that matter. It is part of the evolution of the city. While sad, change is constant and necessary and defines the very nature of vitality.
ReplyDeleteIt's not part of the evolution. It was forced by rising rents and costs of living in NY. When my monthly costs (no mortgage) for a small apartment went up to $2.50 a square foot I left.
ReplyDeleteYou don't understand vitality if you think NY is a vital city now. NY changed remarkably since 9/11. We bore the costs--all of them. Our aid came 3 years later as Wyoming needed it more--sure--all those speparated microwave towers
To this list should be added all the people who left not willingly but because our quality of life suffered so much. Before Anonymous says I'm a poor disgruntled ex-New Yorker, I'm far from poor--just chose to use my grad education to work in social services so I could "help" people. NY no longer has the business Anonymous mentions as they're no longer viable. We, the people, are.
If you're going to make a comment like that use your name. You should be proud of working in an industry that pays much and enables you to take advantage of everything NY offers
Big Nick's?? Rent increase of $18,000.00 per month???? Big Nick's was the bomb. What's the name of the creep landlord who did that? How to kill yourself, New York. I hope De Blasio and his staff wear bullet proof vests and do something to reverse this greed.
ReplyDeleteI didn't see any mention of Balducci's on 6th Avenue, which closed in 2003 and reopened in midtown but then moved to Greenwich, CT in 2009. Also, the Ideal Restaurant on 3rd Avenue in Yorkville, although it closed in 1997. I too mourn the loss of the diamond district - How about also the loss of the garment district? What made the city an interesting place with a special character found nowhere else in the world is going away.
ReplyDeleteI think Brendan said it all. I am just so happy to find people who get it. What is being talked about on this page is not just an "evolution" due to changing times. The rate of change has been unprecedented during and since Bloomberg and can't just be attributed to the normal ebb and flow that the city normally goes through. This is unprecendented in my lifetime and I am 56 years old - Old enough to remember. Jeremiah, I am very glad to have found your blog, but also very sad. I'm sure you'll understand.
OMG! Does anyone really know how many places have disappeared? This used to be a quaint town! Very different attitude now! Now it's just full of idiots! I've only lived here 42 years plus years of visiting the Macy's butcher shop in the basement and the floor that had tons of fabric, with my Mother. I read this and feel depressed. NYC will never be as it once was-that's too late. It's soul has been sold to you-know-who. I find myself actually saying out loud, not into a cell phone, that I miss the pimps and hookers-I grew up in Hell's Kitchen yet they never bothered me and I walked a dog at night. Even my daughter misses the places I took her in the 90's that are all gone now. NYC has become "vacant". It's a shame but I guess that's what you get when there's a money bag where a heart used to be and everyone here is wafting on the scent...
ReplyDeleteMcBells & O'Henry's on 6th Avenue between 4th & Washington Place both closed sometime in the late 90's. McBells had GREAT food.
ReplyDeleteJoes Lounge on 3rd at 10th, a really great bar. The Dugout on 3rd at 13th.
Subteranean Records on Cornelia st. Bleecker St. records on , well, guess...
Essentially every record shop in the Village(s) more or less...
Rock Clubs? Don't get me started...
It was Paul's Lounge on 3rd and 10th.
DeleteThese pages duplicate what has occurred all across the US and world:
ReplyDeleteLook I am very irritated with most people viewing the obvious and not recognizing it, as these photos and stories reflect the lives and deaths of a people, a city, a culture, a nation (USA), and a society (capitalism) because all these outward things that represented capitalism, the diverse American society representing workers farmers and small business which built that country, replaced by the bottom line none can afford as they are squeezed out, the immigrants who built that culture:
FOR CAPITALISM IS NOT A SOCIAL SYSTEM A CULTURE A SOCIETY ALL IT IS< IS THE PROCESS OF MAKING MONEY NOTHING ELSE IT SELLS DRUGS, GUNS, WAR, DEATH, LIES, IGNORANCE, DECEPTION ETC IT IS EMPTY AND BRAINLESS KILL IT BEFORE IT KILLS YOU.
Step-by-Step Hardware, 25+ years, rent increase
ReplyDeleteRoman Barber, 70+ years, rent increase
Betty's Beauty Salon, rent increase
KItchen Market and the Bright Food Shop in Chelsea 1984-2007
ReplyDeleteThe BEST traditional Mexican burritos, soft tacos, handmade chips, salsas, guacamole... guinness stout gingerbread and oh so much more when they opened the Bright.
Jeremiah... since when does a mom and pop shop = gentrification?
We struggled to get it open and keep it open for years and when Dona and Stuart renovated the Bright Food Shop it was always with close attention to maintaining the history and as much of the original fixtures as possible.
These stores restored this hoods bodies and spirits in every sense of the word for more than 20 years. Regulars cried when it closed. CRIED
Reality check: Prime Burger closed by owners who also owned the building and wanted to sit back and collect a healthy rent (although still empty as of Feb 2016!). Same for Madison Avenue bookshop except building given by founder to manager who also realized windfall of living off rents than peddling hardcover books!!
ReplyDelete