By Gus Saltonstall
Fairway Market is a beloved Upper West Side institution.
Its green awning takes up more than half a block on Broadway between West 74th and 75th streets.
It has come to our attention (and now yours) that there is an error in its storefront signage. Fairway’s slogan is “Like No Other Market,” and the line appears on the store’s Broadway-facing signage six separate times. The signage is the same format in each case, “Fairway” in yellow capitalized letters, and then, “Like No Other Market” in smaller, upper and lowercase white letters underneath.
However, if you take a look at the section of the signage nearest the corner of West 74th Street and Broadway, you’ll notice the typo, which was spotted recently by an eagle-eyed West Side Rag tipster.
“LIke No Other Market.”
The “I” in “Like” is capitalized, when it should be lowercase as the second letter of the word. In each of the five other instances where the slogan is written on the green storefront, the “i” in “Like No Other Market,” is properly lowercase.
And here are the three examples on the northern side of the store, which also each have the lowercase “i” in “Like.”
The Rag reached out multiple times to Wakefern Food, which owns Fairway Market, to see if there was an explanation for the one capitalized “I” in the signage, or if the company was aware of it, but we never heard back.
On Monday morning, the Rag visited the Upper West Side Fairway and spoke to a manager, who did not provide her name, but simply said the capital “I” in “LIke No Other Market” on the storefront was a “mistake.” She added that she hadn’t noticed the discrepancy before, and it had never been brought to her attention.
After some digging through Google Maps imagery, the origin of the one capitalized “I” can be pinpointed a bit more.
For those who don’t remember, the Upper West Side Fairway Market awning used to be blue.
While the “Fairway” element of the signage is still a shade of yellow, you’ll notice that the “Like No Other Market” slogan was written in entirely capitalized letters.
Additionally, as pointed out by the WSR commenter Boris, you’ll notice there is also a typo in the former blue awning, where it reads in one section, “Lie No Other Market,” instead of “Like No Other Market.”
Then, between August 2013 and September 2014, the Upper West Side market performed the restoration and redesign of its storefront signage to the green awning that stands today, Google Maps images show.
And in that redesign is when the one “I” in “Like No Other Market” was seemingly accidentally left capitalized.
Investigation remains ongoing and please check back in for updates.
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Why is that phrase written with quotation marks?
Testimonial from an anonymous celebrity.
Not much point in being a celebrity if you’re just going to make anonymous comments.
Company slogans sometimes are, unfortunately.
Ostensibly because they’re telegraphing that a customer is saying it.
Haha!
The old blue awning also has a typo. One of the phrases says: “LIE NO OTHER MARKET”
Aw, Jeez… Truth in advertising:/
Nice catch, Boris!
Someone get a ladder &. a green marker!
Now THIS is the reportage that I read the WSR for. My heart had barely recovered from the heated bialy exchange when I came across this Woodward- and-Bernstein-worthy investigative report. Phew.
Oh Dear God!
Breathlessly awaiting the update on this important story.
Wow!!! Who says the Upper West Side isn’t the cutting edge of NYC.
And given that Fernway sells lots of ShopRite and Gourmet Garage branded product, it’s more like many other markets.
Fernway?? Don’t you mean Fairway?!Poor spelling abounds
Wakefern (ShopRight) purchased the NYC Fairways in 2020.
And for at least 15 years WakeFERN has owned Gourmet Garage.
Besides Fernway another apt name for Fairway West 74th Street is Fairwake.
Go to Wakefern dot com to discover what other supermarket names Wakefern owns. Morton Williams is now on the list.
It used to be, “Like No Other Market.” Now it’s just a supermarket. One with cameras for facial recognition all over the place,
And the store over prices some items massively relative to other area supermarkets, but supposes to keep customers with the best prices on laundry detergent, ice cream, Parmesan, and decent quality oil oil, all the while forgetting to to anything to improve the shopping experience — eg cutting the volume on the “radio” adverts and or cutting down on the self checkout machines + making sure that the ones that take cash take cash.
Yeah. The meals-to-go section immediately when you enter the store is mediocre at best. The new Morton Williams on 68th and b’way has a much better selection of prepared meals.
Ironically now owned by Wakefern.
Albeit, and I shop there, the prepared food at MW has always seemed to me dry and lacking flavor, except salt. Better supermarket sushi than Fernway.
Zzzzzzzzzz
By “zzzzz” do you mean that Fernways’ offerings are boring in a way that even the hedgefund Fairways’ weren’t? If yes, I agree, but I think you meant something else.
Gee, someone is being pedantic today, isn’t s/he.
“Aren’t they,” said someone.
Add “?”
“Not necessarily,” I said.
This was fun, but can we figure out the deal with the tiny median at W74 and Amsterdam and who keeps decorating it?! It’s a mystery to me.
His name is Walter, and he is a local artist who has lived in the neighborhood for 50-plus years.
Someone who’s into driftwood.
Does Gale Brewer know, or have anything to say about this?
Fairways really went downhill after it was taken over by Shop Rite, regardless of the sign.
Yep.
And it was far from perfect in its 3 previous incarnations, but at least the prices were excellent and a subset of the section was amazing.
Fairway.
Has Nick Fuentes weighed in?
Anyone know the process for submitting articles to the Pulitzer committee?
Well, the offices are in the Columbia School of Journalism building in the Morningside Heights campus.
Good luck getting in the gate without approval.
I also would like to know why the restaurant is Trattoria iL Gusto Wine Bar and not Il Gusto on its
signage.
“iL” is so confusing!
I feel bad for Fairway; they’ve been unable to purchase a sign without errors for decades now!
They get a significant discount on signs with a typo. Times are tough!
Good news, Mayor Mamdani has offered free buses, and free sign repairs!!
Ahem… I think you meant “Mayor Mamdani has offered free buses to view the sign mistakes at Fairway”. (Just “charge the rich” I believe).
Thank you for your attention to this matter!!
in two weeks!!!
Does this really deserve an entire article?
Yes. When compared about the long-running series on candy left on a stoop, this is monumental!
don’t forget mysterious discarded chickens!
It probably doesn’t deserve an entire article in the NYT.
But this is a local blog.
Yes. Yes it does.
And a follow-up.
I love everything about this article.
I love everything about the comments! Thanks, everyone!
Well. speaking of utterly humiliating public errors in language. that clearly deserve our attention and scrutiny..
Your hyphenation of “half-a-block” is incorrect.
You only use a hyphen when a phrase functions as a compound modifier before a noun, like:
• a half-block walk
• a half-block-long awning
And not when following a verb, as in your sentence.
I hope to continue my investigation and please check back for updates.
Dan….Can’t help joining in the fun. If “Well” is the beginning of your sentence, shouldn’t there be a comma instead of a period following? And no period after “language”?
Signed,
an annoying lifetime member of the grammar police. 🙂
William Safire is proud of both of you. And if you go for the comma, don’t forget to capitalize the S that follows.
I love articles like this! Thank you WSR.
No one does investigative journalism anymore. Except the West Side Rag.
As long as we’re being obsessive about such things, I would point out that “half-a-block” (with hyphens) is an adjective, as in “a half-a-block stretch”; in this article, it should read, simply, “half a block.”
Clutching my pearls in horror!
I can top this. Saw this cafe advertising free Wifi with this: Free Wife.
Full disclosure though, it was in a different country, but still…
That’s done it. Not shopping there. 1’m out. Arrgh, wish 1 did not know. Can’t you Iet us live in ignorance West SIde Rag???!!!
The biggest typo is the entire phrase, “like no other market.” While that used to be true many years ago, today Fairway is like every other market, and sometimes worse. Now owned by Wakefurn Foods, which also owns ShopRite, Fairway has become a boring, middle of the road, high priced grocery store with subpar produce , pre-packaged meats and fish, and worse, tasteless Bowl & Basket items (the ShopRite house brand). Missing the old Fairway!
Used to be like no other. Not anymore.
Made me chuckle!! They should leave it as is!!
All these years and no one noticed/cared. Proofreading is so undervalued.
i for one am flabbergasted! lol
Are you kidding me? You found this to be so important to report more than what’s going on with our city and food and medical etc??? For our near9 million people?? This is rediculous🤬
REdiculous?? Can’t ANYONE spell anymore?!
Are you kidding me that you can’t properly spell “ridiculous”?
Maybe the typo in “ridiculous” was deliberately placed to turn the whole comment into meta-irony.
Yow! I am truly impressed . I wish I had paid more attention to the years of grammar instruction in grade school and junior high (where no one ever uttered “”meta-irony, either with or without the hyphen). But now I am a stealthy grammarian who takes great pleasure in conversutions such as this one.
Keeping up the thread, I wonder if conversutions are something about which I should be soperstitious?
Wow. Running out of things to write?
There are many cringeworthy typos and misspellings on storefront signs in New York. Cringeworthy, that is, for those who are obsessed with the King’s English.
My biggest pet peeve are the ‘Stationary’ stores. I sometimes want to ask the proprietor when they decided to become non-mobile.
OMG. This is a socialist plot engineered by Momdani long before he announced his run. The I represented himself. as in Me Myself and I. Good work Rag. Woodward and Bernstein couldn’t have done better.
There is a fabulous song called ME MYSELF I by Joan Armatrading.
Ask Alexa to play it!
Love Joan Armatrading! Joan Osborne too:)
A ladder, some green paint, and maybe 10 minutes would fix this “problem.”
much ado?
I love the West Side Rag. Articles like this are one of the reasons why. It’s like walking the streets of the neighborhood with a smart funny friend. A friend who notices all sorts of interesting things — some vital, some trivial. And some, like these, that are a little bit of both.
I have to say the West Side Rag gets news no other outlet can find. You uncovered a big scandal! Congrats!!!!
WAS a beloved UWS institution. Ownership change in 2020 brought deteriorating quality & much higher prices. Far from beloved at this point – stopped shopping there a few years ago.
The Fairway article, plus a MetroCard, will get you on the subway until January.
Continuing on our Upper West Side typo tour, head over to 70th St & Columbus and grab a bottle of wine from Central Wines and Spirits, or as their canvas awning calls them – Central Wines and Spirts. Spelling aside – nice selection overall.
Fairway doesn’t notice much about what is wrong with the store or care about correcting real issues…
The Fairway Cafe has great french fries.
Not the home fries…sometimes awful
Please list the names of the residents who won’t shop at Fairway because of this typo, as opposed to the crowds and the high prices
They probably just ran out of lowercase i’s.
Who cares
Too bad it’s ShopRite, now. Quality has gone down.
Lol
I can’t unsee this now. Darn you, WSR! I so did not need to know this.