Chain stores are expanding at a rapid rate on the Upper West Side (Applebee’s, anyone?) and we are here to document the brave new world. Behold, some recent expansions.
Pinkberry was getting set to open last night at 93rd street and Broadway, as documented in the photo above by Ken Lupano, who first heard about the froyo empire’s expansion back in October.
Michael’s Arts & Crafts added an additional 10,000 square foot at its store at 808 Columbus Avenue in the Columbus Square development (from 97th to 100th street). Whole Foods in Columbus Square, meanwhile has added a 2,775 square foot wine shop on the ground floor of the store.
Columbus Square has also seen some recent closures, with Associated Supermarket and Rookie USA both shutting their doors in recent months.
Whats going on here is Wall Street has mined Americans wealth to the point that no one but the banks have enough money left to develop anything.
And they will only do Chain Stores or Mega Stores. A single retail location cannot qualify for a loan in this economy.
Greed and other corrupt goals are given incentives here by the financial sector.
The wine store is not new, just expanded.
Could someone (literate, please, without spelling errors that would embarrass a fifth-grader, as in some postings) EXPLAIN WHY UPPER WEST SIDERS SHOULD BE DENIED ACCESS TO THE SAME CHAIN STORE BRANDS THAT EVERY SUBURBANITE OR BRIDGE-AND-TUNNEL TYPE HAS?
If we WANT to patronize a (gasp!!!) chain store we would have the ability WITHOUT having to rent a Zipcar and drive 30 to 50 miles roundtrip!
And if we DO NOT WANT TO PATRONIZE A (all-together-now — GASP!!) CHAIN STORE, WE WILL IGNORE IT! It’s called FREEDOM TO CHOOSE! Why are we so special that we cannot have the same rights as any other citizen of any other neighborhood?
Are those so opposed to chain stores afraid that we are not smart enough to choose? Why do you think so little of your fellow UWSers?
Hey, the best protest against an Applebees is to ignore it and support a local institution like Big Nick’s on 77th and Broadway, which is in danger of closing NOT BECAUSE OF ANY CHAIN STORE but because the landlord wants $20,000 per month more in rent.
So how many of you purists have actually supported a local establishment like Big Nick’s?
yeah,kinda thought so!
Anyone who wants to enjoy the sterility of the suburbs has the right to move to the suburbs. Until recently, people moved to the UWS (or chose to remain here having grown up here) because it was different — don’t we have the “right”, as you call it, to have something *different* from suburbia?
If you like Applebee’s, by all means go to Applebee’s. It doesn’t matter which one you go to — by definition, they are all alike. Uniformly, homogeneously, identically alike. Go, and enjoy. But the “right” to have one a block away? Did I miss that in the Constitution?
I don’t like Applebee’s. Don’t I have the “right” *not* to go to Applebee’s? I, and my family, had dinner at Big Nick’s just last night. If the Suburban Sameness continues to overcome this neighborhood — so that you can not only go to *some* Applebee’s but can go to one in your bedroom slippers — you’re going to deny us that right. Not just *this* Big Nick’s, but *any* Big Nick’s — since there is only one.
Who gave you the right to deny us that access solely so that you could have convenience?
And, by the way, if you’d read the piece in yesterday’s Times about Big Nick’s, you’d know that it’s actually *not* a greedy landlord that’s seeking to pocket an additional $20,000 a year. Rather, the landlord’s real-estate taxes have increased by that amount, and the landlord (in order not to *lose* money) is acting on his right to pass through those costs to his tenant — Nick.
Now *that* is, unfortunately, a real right. There is no “right” to have an Applebee’s in your neighborhood just because you don’t feel like trekking to Levittown. Besides, couldn’t you just defrost and microwave a frozen TV dinner from the market? It’s the same thing Applebee’s would do for you, and you wouldn’t even have to put on your slippers!
You do realize that many of the people moving to the UWS come from the suburbs and do not have urban tastes and values. They seriously contribute to the decline of small businesses that do not offer them what they are used to. Many have automobiles and use them to drive to shopping that is more convenient for their lifestyle.
@NYCIssues Please explain to me what “urban tastes and values” are. I question whether you really shop at these Mom and Pop stores, because quite frankly the no-name brand garbage that someone of these stores charge an arm and a leg for is not worth my money. If these Mom and Pop stores carried quality brands that didn’t fall apart after a couple of uses, maybe I wouldn’t have to wait to go to the Target near my mother’s house in Connecticut to shop. Frankly, I find the shopping at Duane Reade and Walgreen’s better than some of these Mom and Pop places.
Cato – thank you for the perfect reply. Today, my daughter and I had lunch at Dive Bar (those catfish tacos can’t be beat!) and then our family joined another family for dinner at Gabriela’s. Love this neighborhood. I will say, that we will probably spend a few $’s at Pinkberry. But as you wrote, that’s our choice. Scooter Stan, you sound angry.
Thank you, Cato.
Don’t forget the new Kate Spade store… My biggest gripe with the chain stores is not that they’re chains, but that all of the high-end (and now low-end) retail is sucking the life out of the UWS. If you walk from Columbia U to 75th street, it is like walking into the suburbs as soon as you hit the high 80s. It goes from cafes and lively street life to absolute darkness and silence. I don’t care about the chains, but I do pay a lot of money and give up a lot of conveniences to live in the city so that I can enjoy the energy and activity around me. If everything closes at 8 or 9 pm (Loehman’s, Stewart Weitzman, EMS, Sephora, Lululemon…), it feels like living in the burbs. When people ask me what it’s like to live on the UWS, I tell them to imagine living in the Short Hills Mall.
JDUWS you got it all wrong! As a suburbanite just moved to the UWS, I lived by the SHMall for years and you have to be kidding me if you think the UWS is anything like it! All the high end stores of the mall are on 5th Ave and Madison, not Amsterdam and Broadway! Plus, you do not have to get dressed to the nines to shop on the UWS, like you would the mall. I could never shop at the SH Mall. Too ridiculously expensive!
Just because there are chain stores does not mean the demise of the mom and pops. It’s called branding! Believe me, the quality, quantity and snob appeal at the Short Hills Mall is seriously missing from our UWS neighborhoods.
I lived in Short Hills for 26 years. I do not remember ever dressing up to go to the mall. It had expensive stores but it was still a mall. the stores that have been going in on the UWS side are mall-style stores. This neighborhood always prided itself as being a “neighborhood” with mom and pop stores. It is turning into a plasticized version of itself, like a lot of the rest of the city. It may bring in big corporation revenues but that doesn’t necessarily make it better. And I thought the gentrification of the ’90s was depressing…
I totally agree. I used to live in the burbs. Now I live in the again. What if anything can be done to stop the Applebees et al?
Also contributing to the decline of the UWS are frontage policies (40 feet, 60 feet…) of chain drug stores and national banks, which advance the homogeneity of the neighborhood. Banks can take prime corner locations by dipping into their advertising budgets. But without sympathetic representation on the City Council, even this would be worse.
The West Side Rag has followed this issue as well.
Frankly, who cares about the type of store, so long as it can offer (1) jobs and (2) lower prices. I gladly patronize the “suburban” Trader Joe’s if it means saving $10 on my grocery shopping. Noone would ever confuse the UWS with suburbia. ever. The buildings, foot traffic, buses, subway, street characters (yes, you, Jesus Guy) — thats what makes uo this neighborhood. And trust me, I much prefer it with the Trader Joe’s, EMS and TJ Maxx, then with the crack dealing, mugging and trash. But thats just me.
And Applebee’s… most UWSers wont go there.
*sigh*
I live across the street from both Starbucks and the new Pinkberry so, yeah, I go/will go there. But for my real food? Spare me the nat’l chain restaurants. I’ll take Telio, B. Cafe, and Cafe con Leche over them ANY day, even if some other meals are downgraded to PB sandwiches to make up for the $$$.
(Plus, waited tables at Applebee’s for far too long in college. So, *so* not happening.)
Cato speaks the truth but rather than string together posts, why not organize a movement against the chainification of the UWS? How about a Shop Local campaign? How about zoning? How about local political leadership?
I just want frozen yogurt in the 90s/Columbus!! Why are here 5+ on broadway in a 3 block radius.