A brand-spanking new Verizon store opened today at the site of H&H Bagels on 80th Street and Broadway. The new store also replaced the stores that were next to H&H, including Magic Smile and Oz Moving stores.
H&H was one of the most famous bagel stores in the city, taking on an almost iconic status even though some critics considered its doughy bagels inauthentic. It was seized by city marshals after 39 years in 2011 because owner Helmer Toro got way behind on rent (like hundreds of thousands of dollars behind). H&H’s midtown factory is also gone — it’s already been renovated and is back on the market for leasing.
The new Verizon store opened to replace a Verizon store on 82nd that shut down.
Read some odes to H&H that we posted on the day it closed here.
Before
After
Photos by Avi and Laughing Squid.
In honor of the occasion, Verizon is offering new choices in cell phones:
Plain
Whole wheat
Poppy
Sesame
Garlic
Onion and
Cinnamon raisin
And for those of you accustomed to an iPhone, Verizon offers …. the “Everything”.
Enjoy the new neighborhood!
Okay, that’s hilarious.
just plain sad!!
And for an extra $30 a month (for the first year), you can get a schmear of cream cheese, too!
I suppose the homeless guys that hung out in front have probably given up on the neighborhood. They became a part of that corner. Never really bothered anyone unless you minded having the door held open for you. Hey, but now the corner is “safer”, “more presentable”, and all those other things that privileged, entitled people say to make themselves feel better about having to come across anything remotely real in their daily lives like poverty. Sure h&H messed up their own finances but don’t think people who drive the economy and fuel gentrification aren’t glad to get this “run down” corner off of Broadway.
Miss H&H, can’t find a good bagel in NYC anymore! Any one remember the bagel shop in Penn Station? I go to Brooklyn Bagels, but not the same, and forget Murray’s.
As long as Ess a Bagel still exists, all is well in the world. Or at least the bagel world.
Oh, thank goodness! I was getting worried about the lack of Verizon stores in this neighborhood.
Now if only I could find someplace to get a frozen yogurt.
R.I.P Upper West Side:( The UWS/NYC is gone. But, at least we have our memories…for whatever that’s worth….
Ugh. The worst. Are those 3 overly bright signs necessary? There are no good bagels on the UWS, none. Not that I was a fan of H&H either, but should we have some good bagels up here like the rest of the city? Not gonna lie, I was hoping for Murray’s.
well as a loyal Verizon customer/stockholder I for one applaud this change to my neighborhood… and those dirty homeless “people” that would congregate on this corner? Ugh! I moved here back in ’10 and it’s taken that long for them to go… Their relocation has been long overdue! Why can’t you people see that this city is changing for the better? This is no longer a city for the underclasses!
Jenny,
We people can absolutely spot the changes for the better, but this isn’t one of them. Those signs are obnoxious, and a disturbance to the neighbors who pay a premium to live here. I’m not one for keeping grime for nostalgia’s sake, and I won’t miss the guys hanging outside of H&H. Heck I didn’t even like their bagels! But this store is huge. It’s not Apple, it could have been half that size.
As far as this no longer being a city for the underclasses, I’m sure the residents of W. 95th street who’ve been saddled with 2 mens homeless shelters without notice would disagree.
H&H was not the most interesting storefront. Still, I remember going in there and seeing the bagels being made. The large vats of boiling water with ringlets of dough bobbing around. Glasses fogging up in the dead of winter from the steam. Also the baking sheets with the boiled ringlets ready to go in the oven to finish off the process. No where in the city is anything made anymore.