OPENINGS & CLOSINGS: ZURUTTO, ANEL CLEANERS, D’AGOSTINO, JOIE, T2, LA QUINTA
Another longtime cleaners closes its doors as dozens line up to taste new ramen. Check out recent Upper West Side openings and closings below.
Zurutto, the ramen and gyoza bar on 72nd street between Columbus and Broadway, opened on Sunday night, and they were apparently giving out free food and beer. The restaurant is run by the owner of sushi spot Tenzan. Jeff snapped the picture above of the line to get in and says the place is set to open for good on Monday. Here’s Jeff’s photo of the ramen.
Anel Cleaners on 70th street and Columbus Avenue has closed after more than 50 years. The owner owns the building, so it didn’t have to do with rent, the Times reported.”‘It’s time,” said [owner Robin Saltzman] by way of explaining the decision to shut down, adding that 60-some hours a week, from early morning to early evening, is ‘a lot of hours.’ Anel will be replaced by a branch of Aesop, an Australian skin-care retailer that has six Manhattan stores.” Fun fact: the store was initially called Chanel, until the owner took off the CH to avoid a legal challenge by the Chanel brand and to move up higher in the phone book.
D’Agostino on 110th street and Broadway will close on Saturday. We reported a couple of months ago that the closure was likely. A manager told one customer that “competition” ended up dooming the store.
Tea shop T2 is opening on Columbus between 68th and 69th. Thanks to Diana for the photo.
Joie, a boutique, is opening at the corner of 69th street and Columbus.
Choice Hotels pulled out of its franchise agreement with the Rodeway Inn on 71st street between Columbus and Central Park West after the latest alleged crime occurred there, but a new proprietor is stepping in: La Quinta. Perhaps they can stem some of the hotel’s recent problems. Thanks to Matt for the photo.
News Inc., the news and candy shop, is closing up shop on Broadway between 76th and 77th street and moving to 273 Amsterdam Avenue between 72nd and 73rd street. Now that News Inc. and Bra Smyth are gone, the Hotel Belleclaire is closer to a major project to change the storefronts on that block. Thanks to Sue for the photo.
The Belleclaire was cited several times in the recent past for bedbugs.
Oh, oh! Duelling candy stores. There’s already another one at the north end of the block of Amsterdam between 72nd and 73rd, which recently added a posh cigar humidor cabinet that even looks and smells like real wood. Could this be happening? I can’t even think of where there is another. When I moved into the neighbourhood there was a double wide beneath my apartment, though (next to an authentic re-upholsterer). Those big ones are long gone, around here.
I’m not 100% certain – but I THINK the newspaper/candy store is moving onto or taking over the existing one.
I always thought cleaners sounded like somewhere one would go for a high colonic.
I never understood why D’agastinos opened on 110th, and who shopped there and why. Its is right across from the awesome Westside Marketplace, and a few blocks from Garden of Eden. Every time I ventured in there it was pretty much empty.
Believe it or not, that D’Agostino’s has a long history on that corner; about 15 years ago it was the ground-floor tenant in an old 2-story “taxpayer” building. That building was acquired by Columbia University, and over the strenuous objections of many in the community was eventually demolished in favor of the current structure (which houses a K-8 school catering primarily to the children of Columbia faculty and staff, as well as some residential areas for Columbia folks). (Columbia always promised to bring back the grocery store as a tenant.) That structure was completed around 2004, and the D’Ags went in immediately.
Contemporaneously, the building on the NE corner of that intersection (also a “taxpayer”) was acquired and demolished. The neighborhood lost a great bagel joint (Columbia Hot Bagels) to that demo. I am hazy on whether or not the West Side Market was present in the old NE corner building but my general recollection is that it was, and its loss was also vehemently protested to the community board.
At any rate, the area went from having one sort of mediocre grocery store (D’Ag’s) and one horrifically bad one (old Gristedes on 107 and Broadway, now a Garden of Eden) to having two awesome boutiquey grocery stores and a pretty good D’Ag’s.
The more you know…
PS – the Garden of Eden was the last of those entities to open as I recall. D’Ag’s definitely went into that location assuming it would be a different competitive space. Whoops!
West Side Market was there before the demolition, but at about half the size and not nearly as good.
Folks seem to be forgetting that there used to -another- grocery at the corner of 110 and Broadway until the mid/late the 1990s. The space at the SW corner currently occupied by a Rite Aid was previously a Sloan’s grocery. Now that was a terrible store. I think I went in there once and swore never again.
As I recall the SE corner then had a hot dog place right on the corner, a Grey’s Papaya or something similar. Can’t recall if the D’Ag’s was there too but located slightly away from the corner.
Not only was the Westside smaller before the building was torn out and rebuilt, it had expanded during the mid 1990s. There used to be a very divey bar between it and the bagel shop and other stores closer to the corner of 110. When the bar closed, WSM expanded into that space.
I can’t wait to see what replaces the D’Agostino’s. It’s a large space and with Columbia as the landlord perhaps there’s a chance of a tenant other than a bank or chain drugstore. (There are three Chase banks, a TD bank, a Citibank, and a Bank of America within two blocks and a Duane Reade and Rite Aid within one block, so the area is already well saturated.) I heard something about a farmer’s market-type space a while back.
Mary, you left out the Santander bank a block away.
Re: “Fun fact: the store was initially called Chanel, until the owner took off the CH to avoid a legal challenge by the Chanel brand and to move up higher in the phone book.”
Even Fun-er fact…sort of: The store’s sign on the W. 70th Street side is, as my former inner-city students might have (correctly) said, “Messed Up!”
It now reads “FRENCH CL ANER”, as the “Anel” portion seems to have collapsed on itself, removing that all-essential “E” !
R.I.P., Monsieur E
While I love T2 teas which I’ve sampled in Melbourne and Paris, I wonder why this shop is opening two doors down from recently closed tea shop – Palais du The – which never seemed to have customers. Hmmmm.
there was a great bar with cheap beer, including 6 pack you could take out – the Marlin? between 110 & 111th. And there was a Chinese restaurant on the NE corner of 110/Bway.