Open Thread Wednesday

Sign of the times: Fairway is planning to file for bankruptcy and close its stores. Obviously not Heights specific, but with our mediocre local grocery options, some would travel down there to stock up. https://nypost.com/2020/01/21/fairway-planning-to-file-for-chapter-7-bankruptcy-will-close-all-stores

I would say what killed Fairway was greed. Undoubtedly the owners made a tidy annual profit from their one store on the UWS. That’s what made them attractive to the private equity firms that made massive investments and then made them go public and expand.

While my family will miss the Red Hook location, we won’t miss it for the groceries — the groceries have been going downhill for years now. What we’ll miss is that fantastic café location. While the food was mediocre we would shop the store for picnic materials and then sit outside and enjoy a lovely sunset view while the kids ran rampant. I can’t conceive of what’s going to move into that location. What a loss.

Yes, I’ll miss the waterfront cafe. As you say, the food was nothing special, and the staff there could be gruff, but it was a pleasant spot to sit outside along the harbor.

Red Hook residents will really be hurting for a decent supermarket now. I guess they’ll have to order online.

2 responses…. The simple one is that we DO have a capitalist economy, and while there are many bad aspects and “cheats” – like calling one’s employees “independent contractors” – times change and those that don’t bend, break!

“Ma Bell” survives as Verizon, but MySpace went from serious player to footnote in a couple of years.

In a year where Wegman’s opened, any tears for Fairway strike me as pretty ludicrous.

#2 – and much bigger – Eric Adams’ terrible, horrible, no good MLK day, 2 days back –

Until the revolution – a couple of regular commenters around here ARE far enough left of center to make that not altogether ironic – NYC is very much TWO CITIES, one for folks who thought Fairway was worth taking an Uber to and from … and a much larger number who only wish they could buy decent fresh produce some place they could walk to/from.

Fortunately, most of the latter DO have roofs over their heads … and jobs, and many of the rest are “provided for” – probably not altogether adequately, but way better than in almost any other city in the U.S.

When Eric rails against Iowan “immigrants,” he’s barely better than Trump – especially since this is just as much of a “dog whistle” as one routinely hears on Fox.

Sure, he’d like to be Mayor, … and just possibly, he’d be less of a disaster than David Dinkins. But probably not! “It’s Our City” is just as vacuous and odious as “It’s Our Turn.”

Some of the folks coming from Iowa will start companies and offer meaningful opportunities to people of color. And the building boom is largely about THEM, … and the construction workers are mostly New Yorkers and immigrants who need those job. Plus, their taxes MIGHT make schools and mass transit better – although that’s more of a “stretch.”

Just as Wegman’s provides literally hundreds of entry level jobs to people of color, many of whom live close to the store, and – it’s worth noting – well less than a mile from any point in Brooklyn Heights.

I never shopped in the Harlem Fairway, so I won’t say a thing about its relationship to the folks who lived nearby, but for all that Red Hook’s demographics are normal for Brooklyn, the shoppers were just as white as those at Key Food on Montague. IF it closes – the last Fairway bankruptcy breathed 5 more years life into it – it’ll be missed even less than Teresa’s!

Such a shame – even though Fairway denies the initial report, it’s been well known that they were in trouble. I went to the new Wegmans and while it’s great that it’s providing local jobs, in terms of pricing they are definitely not serving that area. I don’t understand why people get so excited over it. Maybe some of the produce and staples are decently priced but it’s loaded with trendy luxury products and the prepared foods are restaurant priced. Sixteen bucks for a tray with 8 little scoops of refrigerated mashed potatoes? Great…
At Fairway I loved the guilt-free pricing on their lobster rolls ($9.99 although I noticed the other day it’s now $12.99).

I heard Eric Adams with a pretty sympathetic Bryan L. on WNYC this morning…. He emphasized that there were plenty of Black people in Ohio, so nobody “should” read his “stay there” as racially “coded.”

Iowa, obviously, is a tougher “sell.” Of course, he WAS talking without notes … and his audiences ARE on the front lines re gentrification. When you’re literally forced out of your apt., it takes a near saint not to direct some hostility toward whomever replaced you., and it was clear that Eric was channeling those feelings – perhaps in a genuine MLK vein.

Beware your stats and its source, however, because in our very weird times, I’ll bet that no small number of “immigrants” to NYC had as their last legal address some place outside the U.S. But as will be the case with the census, our city is big enough to “get lost in.”

Still one wonders if Eric thought through his personal (and political) open-ness to genuine (however defined) immigrants … because there can be no doubt that they, too, compete for affordable housing. To hear that Joralemon once separated many Hispanics from [ahem] more stereotypical “Heightsers” seems quaint, but one hears that Bed Stuy and Harlem are significantly “gentrified,” with East New York and other neighborhoods all but “reserved” for people of color the last 75 years … “next in line.”

It would also be nice if someone could track attrition of “immigrants” … of all types. HOW MANY (whether BA’s or MBA’s from Boston, DC, Ithaca, etc. … or from Central America) are New Yorkers 1, 3 or 5 years later?

Wow. Now it sounds like Eric was just going for applause. BTW, your “historic” posts fascinate – you’re digging deep & reporting truly interesting things.

If/when you get tired of tiny Heights, Park Slope probably runs “in parallel” (on things like home ownership, appreciation, etc.)

How much were the five-pound bags of potatoes? Anyone who buys mashed potatoes deserves to pay a couple of bucks per scoop. (Okay, “deserves” is too harsh. How about, ‘shouldn’t be surprised to pay a Jefferson.’)

Can any locals with meteorological knowledge explain why the intersection of Montague and Hicks is prone to hurricane-force winds, even on an otherwise calm day?

I thought you might be having us on with the “23 skidoo” story, but sure enough, Wikipedia lists the Flatiron story as a possible source of the phrase.

PS – and this is in no way an insult, but can you help me parse this sentence of yours:

“The massive scale of The Bossert forces gives the air in a gentle nowhere to go and so the air moves faster.”

Thanks Arch. Clearly I didn’t proofread what I had dictated on the go.

Hold everything! The Post apparently got it wrong. Today they filed for Chapter 11, reorganization, not Chapter 7, dissolution.

I would check out the listings on Briwnstoner.com .

Blu Contracting… Dimitrios is the owner. They were fantastic. Used them for a complicated gut reno in a CoOp and they were great. After us, 3 other people used them in the building and were all very happy.
his office #

718) 545-5450

Here’s the article, which I scanned in from the original before it turned to dust. Click to see at full size (and no, I don’t have permission from the NYT to post this. Read before it gets taken down):
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/55b4fd0d350dea6e6c39afcbf20901fb7687df3efa23e0457c959e28e97a248f.jpg