When Charlie Mom was forced to close last year, the building at the corner of 6th Avenue and 11th Street had just one street-level business left: The Greenwich Gallery Frame Shop.
Now it has none.
After 35 years in business, the Greenwich Gallery has shuttered.
photo: Richard Morgan
On one side of its empty storefront is the empty storefront of Charlie Mom. On the other side is the empty storefront that had once been the amazing Nikos Magazine Shop and has yet to become a Birdbath bakery.
More high-rent blight, all were shuttered--after decades in business--due to hiked rent. (I'm willing to bet that's the case here.) With no penalties and no regulations to stop them, the building owner has now emptied all the businesses from the first floor and is leaving them empty. Could they be hoping for a big-box chain store to take it all?
Meanwhile, no one in city government is doing anything to stop the total destruction of New York's distinctive, local streetscape. We will become, in the end, one big suburban shopping mall.
2015
That's Sixth Avenue. I went to Bed, Bath & Beyond last night and I looked up and down Sixth Avenue from 18th Street and I thought to myself, it's all chains now.
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't object to any store, even big box or a chain like Trader Joe's (if it would fit), as long as it benefits the neighborhood. But the problem is that when vacant stores are rented out, they are the new homes of bank branches or high-end boutiques.
ReplyDeleteLet me get this straight now: Wasn't deregulation supposed to eliminate all the unnecessary restrictions on business and industry so as to inspire more freelance innovation and create a more dynamic competitive environment resulting in more prosperity and technological/economic advancements?
ReplyDeleteWhat happened? You don't suppose greedy big business owners and their mega-companies may have possibly exploited certain legal loopholes or any other unintended consequences that came with the advent of those new laws and regulatory standards do you?
Another Duane Reade or CVS or Rite Aid or Walgreens.
ReplyDeletei lived on 13th & 6th ave for a few years- late 70s. nice quiet area. is the window shade store still there on patchen place? is there still a "patchen place"?? thats a tiny back alley w/townhouses. i think it intersected on 6th. some relative of mine owned the store, they had nice bamboo roll ups. no chains except the sub place. all small businesses.
ReplyDeleteIt is just one after another, after another. Like a kettle of popcorn popping. And we are getting to where there is less unpopped kernels.
ReplyDeleteDonnie, it won't be a CVS, that's going in on the other side of 6th Avenue just up the block on 12th Street in what was the old A&P/Food Emporium/low-rent discount store. That space has been sub-divided and is now a Wells Fargo and I walked by on Saturday (March 27th) and a sign is up saying CVS Opening Soon. It's just a block away from the Rite-Aid on 13th and 6th (which also was a Food Emporium for a while in the 80s)
ReplyDeleteWell, we are being overrun by these drug store chains on practically every block and it is too much. It has happened up in Chelsea too. Just very few fun quirky interesting stores left.
DeleteFairly certain I just broke out in nine varieties of hives, reading the Birdbath homepage.
ReplyDeleteI passed a short time ago and the corner store that was supposed to be a bakery, the former magazine store looks like it will be a cell phone store. There are wall displays for cell phones up along the left side wall. K
ReplyDeleteLook at bleeker dt from w9th to 6th sve if uou want to see the loss of snything thst was unique homey or interesting.
ReplyDeleteTo Laura Rubin:
ReplyDeleteYes, the window shades shop is still there, and Patchin Place is still there.
Here it is on Google Maps. Patchin Place is the alley (unlabeled) just to the right of Crosstown Custom Shade and Glass.
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Crosstown+Custom+Shade+%26+Glass/@40.7348567,-74.0002263,18z/data=!4m8!1m2!2m1!1swindow+shades!3m4!1s0x0000000000000000:0x441b6547f2ba3f52!8m2!3d40.7348624!4d-73.9994028