By Gus Saltonstall
A long-shuttered newsstand reopened in the past few weeks outside an entrance to a major Upper West Side train station.
The newsstand, dubbed Express Essentials, is now open on Broadway, between West 93rd and 94th streets, where there is an alternate entrance to the West 96th Street 1, 2, and 3 station.
The newsstand offers drinks, candies, chips, juices, chocolates, newspapers, magazines, lottery tickets, and dog treats. It also has a somewhat unexpected health section, which includes wheatgrass shots, ginger shots, CBD, THC, vitamins, sea moss, and natural male enhancements.
“The vacant newsstand at the southwest corner near the 1/2/3 96th St. subway entrance has finally opened,” Upper West Sider Kurt Huhner wrote in an email to West Side Rag.
While the Rag does not have an exact day of closure, the newsstand has been shuttered since well before the COVID pandemic.
There is also a newsstand on the west side of Broadway, between West 92nd and 93rd streets, but it remains closed.
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Nature is healing!
Without selling newspapers, I’m not sure what purpose a “newsstand” serves.
The name might be newstand, but they sell magazines, candy, misc items. Being close to the subway stop makes it convenient. I think that some people still buy some newspapers, but largely not being used for the traditional newspaper products.
Do people still buy newspapers at newsstands?
You bet! A college student working as a cashier at my local grocery store was shocked when I bought the NYT. “I didn’t know anyone read newspapers anymore” he exclaimed. I asked him that as a college student plus your social network, do you really need anymore screen time in your life? Give your eyes a break and read a real paper.
There is a great newsstand near Zabar’s.
Nice observation. In a few hundred years from now a contestant on Jeopardy will be asked what is the origin of this word.
OT: I like words that have literal senses now made obsolete by the triumphant march of technology. Like “hang up” or “dial” re: a telephone. Or “scroll down.” Or not even because of technology: e.g. “isolate.”
OT: Sounds like skeuomorphism. From the software realm, other examples include “file” & “folder”.
I hadn’t given them much thought, but they do come in handy when you’re stuck in a random part of the city for an appt and there are no delis or CVS in sight.
This one is within a block or two of multiple pharmacies, bodegas, coffee bars, juice joints etc
I never go up there, but I suppose if you just needed something quick it’s nice not to have to stand in line. The same reason people in buy food from a cart instead of going into a restaurant? ; )
Neither am I, though I suppose it could sell drinks, candies, chips, juices, chocolates, magazines, lottery tickets, dog treats … and newspapers.
There’s a function one on Bway 97/98.
It’s very cute and I wish them luck. It’s brave to start a new business. And I see a few newspapers!
When I was in high school (in the 80s) there was a newsstand inside the #1 station on 110th St. I can’t remember if it was on the uptown or downtown side. There was also a newsstand on the SE corner of B’way & 110th.
There was a very big and busy newsstand just south the steps to the north-bound 1 train (IRT Broadway Local) at 110th and Broadway. It operated 24 hours a day and always provided “life” in the area. Right across from it was a famous Columbia University dive bar called “Cannon’s.” A little further up was the “original ” West Side Market” which also operated 24 hours a day. All of this made this little corner of Broadway feel alive at all hours of the night.
Cannon’s Pub was on the SE corner of Broadway & 108th. Very very sticky dive-y bar.
You’re right. The one at 110th was called the Marlin
Heck, there was also a hot dog counter on the street level entrance to the venerable Lyric Theatre on 42nd St. right until the Disneyfication of the deuce. It was tiledlike a bathroom, albeit with some red to offset the white. And the hot dogs tasted like something you would expect in a bathroom. But you couldn’t buy a newspaper there!
There’s a newsstand at SE corner of 111th and Bway. Drinks, candy, etc. and I mostly see people buying lottery tickets there. Also there’s one on the downtown side of the 110th subway station.
Do you remember all the magazines that used to be displayed for sale at the Mill Luncheonette?
As many commenters have pointed out, given the enormous decrease of people actually buying newspapers (what with the Internet, and access to news with a “click”), newsstands seem to have little purpose. (In my small 18-apartment building, it used to be that at least half of the tenants got the NYT or NYP delivered every day, or at least on the weekend. Now, there are only two who do.)
What most people don’t know is that newsstands NEVER derived the majority of their income from newspapers. They receive(d) their income from the sale of other items, like bottled drinks, candy, chips, etc. The “thought” was that, when someone stopped to by a newspaper, they would make an “impulse buy” of water, some other drink, a candy bar, etc.
Although they had already begun to disappear, I was saddened to see how many newsstands closed and stayed shut due to the pandemic. I don’t patronize them very much, but I do like them “being there” when I do.
Well y’never know when you’ll wanna overpay for a pack o’gum or hemorrhage $3 for a pack of generic Kleenex, right?
It’s about “convenience.” It always is – and people will pay for it. Why do you think they call those dozens of tiny markets all over the place “convenience stores?”
Because it’s north of 86th St., this kiosk will soon be urinated on, splattered with feces and tagged with anti-Zionist graffiti. The neighborhood takes a noticeable nosedive once you venture above 86th. Nice shrubs though.
Move to Florida. Or farther, into the ocean.
Thanks so much for trashing my neighborhood. Used to be north of 96th was the trashee. Glad you’ve added down to 86th. Down to 72nd next?
Along the new Q stations on 2nd Avenue, some of the in-station newsstands became to-go coffee shops. That would be fun to see more.
It is a good retail model.
Everything behind glass. ( people will have to pay, minimal theft )
Newstands closed becuase they were constanly robbed of merchandise on a daily basis.
They should be successful in the current environment,
The have kosher Marijuana there
Splain to us ‘zackly what that means, won’t’cha?
There is also a news stand on the northeast corner of 86th Street and Columbus Avenue that was closed when its owner was robbed and attacked viciously years ago. He never returned and it has remained shuttered ever since
Awesome NYC…come back to me
Calling it a “newsstand” is a lit bit of an oversell here.
NYC newsstands are required by law to sell newspapers, magazines, or other periodicals to maintain their license. (DCWP 20-229regulation) Items other than newspapers, magazines, periodicals, and prepaid telecommunication or transit cards may be offered for sale from a newsstand if they are sold for less than ten dollars exclusive of taxes.
Two pathetic examples of “newspapers” shoved in the plexiglass glass screen is really a stretch here. But, I think most would agree that having such businesses operate and thrive on our urban landscape is a benefit to the community, even if they are no longer “newsstands.”
Do we need to update the regulations for our era?
Without newspapers, because no one buys them anymore, it’s hard to understand how these people can actually make a living. My heart goes out to them.
The hyperbole is amazing. “No one buys them anymore.” The NY Times alone has hundreds of thousands of print subscribers still. Try going into Casa Magazines in the West Village or Soho News on Prince Street and tell them that no one buys newspapers anymore.
Once you travel to cities outside of NYC- from Barcelona, to Nice, Paris, Buenos Ares, Lisbon, you will notice that newspaper/periodiocal kiosks still sell a ton of print.
NYC systematically got rid of the old green newsstands which were far more conducive for selling newspapers than the soulless glass and steel ones we have now.
The fact is that the presence of newsstands in general is a contribution to the physical landscape of the city, like park benches..that create a sense of place. Without them, even the corporate looking versions we have now, make the streetscape colder and less interesting.
Hey! We’ve got a news stand up here in the North West Bronx, a few feet north of West 231st Street @the #1 train, and it’s good to know and have. New cultures and generations, better start reading print on paper often, as the eyes may degenerate faster from so much technology. Journalistic and book print still offers greater meaning and higher order of thinking on a broad scale especially in comparison to social media.