Unfortunately, I have no updates as of yet on the pizzeria owner; but I have not forgotten about it and plan to call in this Thursday. Another story caught my interest as I was doing my interviews for a profile story, however.
On Metropolitan Ave., a few minutes from where I live, there is a big Home Depot store and a Sports Authority that have been there for years. Then, last year, a Trader Joe’s and another store were built on the oversized parking lot that was allocated to Sports Authority. And now, according to Marie Lopresti, the city Board of Education is planning to build a school there as well. This would be very interesting because it will serve as a catalyst for the already changing Metropolitan Ave. ”It would mess things up even more,” as Mrs. Lopresti had put it.
I have not yet been able to find information to confirm the project, which could be done as soon as 2010, but have emailed some people at the Board and see what happens!
Golden Krust has done it again; hopefully they will get it right the 111th time around. In a matter of two years Golden Krust has closed and opened a location on the same street. The first restaurant was located on 161st Street on Grand Concourse that was shut down in early 2006 and in September of 2007 the Franchise started the construction of a new location on 161st Street on Gerard Avenue.
With 111 restaurants across eight states, Golden Krust has become the official masters of closing and reopening a restaurant. Founder, Lowell Hawthorne has 10 siblings, so it comes as no surprise when I step into a Golden Krust restaurant in the Bronx and the owner’s last name is either Hawthorne or Clark. The franchise is an open one but I have to say that even when visiting a relative in Suffern, NY the Golden Krust in that neighborhood was owned by a member or the Clark. When I work at a Golden Krust in 2004 in Yonkers, the restaurant was owned by Mrs. Clark, the sister of Lowell Hawthorne, and when she sold the restaurant in 2006, it was sold to her cousin, a Hawthorne. The Golden Krust that reigned on 23rd Street for about two years was also owned by a member of the Hawthorne family.
It currently stands that there is not any one zip code in the Bronx that does not have a Golden Krust restaurant in its area. Golden Krust is so obsessed with franchise numbers that they fail to do a proper market analysis of the intended area and a proper financial assessment of its future location owner.
As of Sunday, the Off Track Betting in New Dorp on Staten Island has been officially closed. This OTB, along with other locations in New York City has been struggling financially for months now. It is said that while OTB does bring in a lot of money, the amount that has to be handed over to the state has resulted in minimal profit.
There are a total of four Off Track Betting locations on the Island. The one in New Dorp closed this past Sunday, and the other three in Port Richmond, New Springville, and Eltingville are safe for now. The NYCOTB company has been successful for decades, but is now planning on laying off over one thousand of its employees this coming June. As of right now, it is unclear whether the company is going to shut down completely.
The closure of this particular branch of OTB is one of many closures taking place in New York City to help cut costs in an attempt to save the company as a whole. This branch was home to thirteen employees who have been transferred to other locations. “It is very surprising to hear. I mean OTB has been here [in New Dorp] for years. There are lots of lonely old guys who hang out there everyday. I guess they’re going to have to find somewhere else to go now,” says Phil, a retired cop and someone who frequented the New Dorp branch of OTB.
For more about O.T.B. closings, visit:
http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?section=news/local&id=5967167
Benjamin Banneker Academy, one of the city’s most prestigious high schools, sits on the corner of Park Avenue and Clinton Avenue, right next to an elevated stretch of the BQE. While most highways are placed below grade or are surrounded by retaining walls to minimize the noise of traffic the BQE has no such amenities as it makes its way from downtown Brooklyn to Williamsburg. Unfortunately for those located nearby it is quite loud. There is a steady drone of engines and tires rushing over pavement. The whooshing sound of cars blowing by at sixty miles per hour punctuated by a horn or a dump truck rattling over the potholes every so often.
For students at Benjamin Banneker the noise can be a disturbance. Says one Benjamin Banneker student, “I usually don’t even hear it anymore I’m so used to it. Some times though when I’ve got to concentrate it’s too loud.” Unfortunately Benjamin Banneker is an exception in that most of the buildings near this stretch of elevated high way are warehouses, auto body shops, and self storage. While other elevated sections of highway in the city have retaining walls to keep the noise withing acceptable levels it seems unlikely that they will be coming to Brooklyn anytime soon.
Chain and Mom and Pop stores, alike, are unable to withstand the exorbitant rent increases in Chelsea. Recently two more stores have joined the ranks of the departed. Ben and Jerry’s, the ice cream chain on 23rd Street between Seventh and Eight Avenues, seemed under renovations over the past few weeks, but on investigating the site, it proved to be closed. Neighbor, Royal Choice French Dry Cleaners at 320 W23rd Street, between Eight and Ninth Avenues is also closing its doors on Friday of this week.
“I have used them for 5 years,” said Mary S., 43, a mother of two, who has a busy schedule and depends on the dry cleaners reliability and close proximity to her home. With the store closing down due to a rent increase of five to seven thousand dollars, the owner, who got a lease extension last year, has no other choice but to close up shop.
“There is a place across the street from him,” said Mary S., “but they look so crowded.” She, like others in the community, is struggling to find substitutions for the stores they have loved and trusted.
Waiting for the B42 has become a fear for residents of Canarsie. The bus route goes from Rockaway Parkway to Canarsie Pier. Sharon revealed that “waiting in the morning is a total nightmare. I usually wait half an hour and when the bus arrives it’s always overcrowded and passes me like a wayward wind”. The bus is over-packed with students who are attending Canarsie High School, leaving little or no space for others. The journey from Canarsie Pier to Rockaway Parkway is relatively short so there is no limited bus available. According to Debra, “the only good thing about the bus is that when it is overcrowded, I have to force myself through the back door and I don’t have to pay any fare.” Another good aspect of the B42 is that it carries passengers directly inside the train station at Rockaway Parkway; therefore one doesn’t have to pay or transfer to get on the train.
Residents who lives in the middle of the route such as Ave K and J sometimes walk five blocks to the train station in the mornings to prevent themselves from being late for work. The weekends and the nights are terrible as one has to wait 45 minutes or more before getting a bus. Peter claimed, “the B42 is like the lottery; it’s all about luck, sometimes you get lucky, sometimes you don’t.” One can feel more assured in the daytime as the B42 usually runs more frequently.
In Kew Gardens the closest high School is Archbishop Molloy. The only problem is that it costs $6,720 + $200 non-refundable registration fee. Another option is the Shaar Hatorah High School but that is also a private high school. The only other option is Richmond Hill high school which isn’t even in Kew Gardens; it’s located in the heart of Richmond Hill. It’s a short bus ride down Lefferts Blvd but that’s not the only inconvenience. Richmond Hill High School is severely over crowded. It is meant to hold 1,800 students but it is now home to 3,600. The grounds of Richmond Hill High School are filled with little red trailers that house freshmen. These trailers weren’t meant to be used this long so now they are falling apart. The high school itself is filled with students making it hard to move from room to room. To try to enforce kids getting to class on time Hall Sweeps were created. If a student was standing in the hall after the bell he/she was sent to the office for detention. These little steps will fail in the long run as the High School becomes more and more packed. As Nadia Somwaru, a student at Richmond Hill HighSchool notes, “The hallways are mad crowded and I’m aways getting to class late”. 
As I walked West on 14th Street, the surrounding area began to open up around Eighth Ave. Tall high-rise buildings descended into eclectic sequences of lofts that exceeded no more than five stories. Asphalt streets receded into cobblestones that produced a retroactive aesthetic contrast to that of the modern, architecturally infused buildings; I had traversed into the Meatpacking District.
Just below the Highline (a soon to be park renovated from a 100 year old section of freight railway) there hides a clothing boutique with a blue banner above it saying, “Destination“. A ground to ceiling piece of sheet glass separates the interior from the rather cold, exterior. It was quiet on Ninth Ave and Little West 12th with few people on the street at 6:00pm.
I talked with Kazuki Yammto, a 28 year old Japanese-American assistant manager at “Destination,” about his experience working in the neighborhood. Originally from Niigata, Japan (a snow covered mountain village), he has been a resident of the city for 13 years and an employee at the boutique for two. “It’s pretty dead during the daytime” he said, “but when it gets later, the area becomes really crazy.”
During his time working at “Destination,” he has seen such celebrities as Mike Tyson, Nikki Taylor and Donald Trump frequent that particular area. “One of the places I see a lot of celebrities visit is Buddha Bar, which is right across the street”. Although more a fan of performing with his punk rock band at local downtown venues, he says that “It’s a very cool neighborhood to work in because there are always something going on.”
Residents at this 7 story Walton Avenue apartment building are still in shock after 34-year-old Miguel Matias their superintendent strangled and stuffed his 14-year-old daughter in the boiler on Saturday morning.
This brutal violence came after a heated argument between Anna Matias and her father when he caught her using instant messenger to chat with a boy on his computer. Tiffany Hopkins a building resident explains that Miguel’s sister was in the apartment at the time of the murder in the other room and she said that she heard them arguing but she “didn’t think anything of it.” Little did Miguel’s sister know that Anna was in the other room taking her last breath.
Ms. Hopkins described him as “quiet. He always said hello when passing and he seemed normal.” She also described Anna as happy, playful, and always dressed in the latest fashions.
Anna Matias lived with her mother in Pennsylvania and only visited her dad on the weekends. This arrangement came after her father dosed a car that she and her mother Jocelyn was in and tried to burn them alive.
Teary eyed Ms. Hopkins shakes her head, “It makes no sense; he tried to burn her alive before and he was still allowed to have unsupervised visits. It seems like he finally finished the job and I hope he burns in hell for it.”
These days the stretch of Myrtle Avenue from Ft. Greene Park to Classon Avenue is no stranger to development. In the last seven or eight years it has evolved into something of a main drag for Clinton Hill residents, with banks, laundromats, restaurants and bars taking root one right next to the other. With the exception of one Connecticut Muffin all of the new businesses on Myrtle Avenue have not been chains, until now.
Right in the corner of Clermont Ave. and Myrtle Ave. a new building, which will contain condominiums and street level retail space, including a Walgreens, is being erected. The fencing around the construction site bears an illustrated rendering of the finished building, complete with bustling street-scape and blue, cloudless skies. Adjoining this sign is another from Corcoran Group, proudly proclaiming the arrival of this new development in the neighborhood. Both of these signs are unique. What is more typical is fencing or plywood around a construction site with only the contractors name and the required permits affixed to it, no superfluous fanfare. Never before have I seen a sign announcing, celebrating the arrival of a new building on Myrtle Avenue.
Which brings us to Walgreens. As I mentioned, this building will have a Walgreens on the ground floor. It’s not that the neighborhood doesn’t have drug stores, it has many drug stores, at least two of them on Myrtle Ave. within walking distance from my house. What has changed is that Walgreens feels as though it can make some money in Clinton Hill where there was no money to have been made before. So is this a sign that the end is near, that property taxes are going to take a giant leap and scatter all of the long time Clinton Hill residents to points all over the map? Maybe. If it is though not everyone seems to mind. “I think it’ll be convenient. It’s big, they have a really good selection,” says Lucinda, a Clinton Hill resident. Other people were fairly ambivalent and feel as though the arrival of Walgreens and the condos is inevitable. Some even herald its arrival feeling as though it will bring in more businesses and services that Clinton Hill had been lacking.
Perhaps Walgreens is inevitable. Starbucks probably is too. The challenge then might not be how to keep certain businesses out, but how to make them work for you, for your neighborhood, your community.
walgreens
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