Attack of the Chain Stores in Williamsburg
On Friday The Times looked at the tension arising in Williamsburg as chain stores move in. With CVS moving into The Edge, a Duane Reade already on the waterfront, and a Starbucks possibly moving onto Bedford, some residents aren’t too happy. “Williamsburg is the Berkeley of New York, says one resident. (Really?) If anyplace is…
On Friday The Times looked at the tension arising in Williamsburg as chain stores move in. With CVS moving into The Edge, a Duane Reade already on the waterfront, and a Starbucks possibly moving onto Bedford, some residents aren’t too happy. “Williamsburg is the Berkeley of New York, says one resident. (Really?) If anyplace is going to reject a chain store, it’s Williamsburg.” A Facebook group has also popped up called I’m Boycotting Duane Reade to Save Williamsburg. But another resident, a transplant from the Upper West Side, would love to see a Dunkin Donuts or Food Emporium make the move into the neighborhood. For some reason, she said of the naysayers, they don’t want corporate stores. They don’t want convenience. Demand for retail spaces are undoubtedly going up, with rising rents putting pressure on the mom and pops in the neighborhood. “It’s becoming the East Village,” says a resident, lamenting the loss of one bohemian neighborhood to the other.
Williamsburg Unhappily Graduates to Chain Store Territory [NY Times]
Or Target.
People in Brooklyn hate chains – unless of course it’s a Trader Joes, Whole Foods or Fairway.
Middle class consumers supporting a chain store for the purposes of convenience and price are short sighted. The chain store appeals your purse/hectic lifestyle in the short term but then in the long run, you’ve made it increasingly harder to get back to an existence where people in a community rely upon each other to keep themselves afloat.
With that said, WB is not the place to fight the beast. It’s one stop from Manhattan with riverfront views. It’s a place for money to be made and with that comes density. And like DH said, who is gonna pay the rents for the retail in the new construction? WB is not an ideal place for a mom and pop to thrive. It was good while it lasted.
Am I the only one who doesn’t see the likes of CVS as “gentrification,” even for those who like to use the overused term? Bushwick has had all of these chains for years — Walgreens, Duane Reade, Rite Aid, a few banks, we even have competing chain video game stores. They’re exactly the kinds of stores that working parents want for less hassle and lower prices. How nice to afford boutiques; they certainly are aesthetically pleasing and way cuter than corporate chains, but not everyone needs or cares about such things. I think most of the overly educated whiners who take issue with these chains think they’re fighting for the “little guy” when they oppose these stores. I think the “little guy” just wants affordable stuff doesn’t care about the college-Marxist view on the subject.
bring on big business, baby! these little mom and pop price gougers – especially the criminal bodegas that change their prices daily, let alone even advertise the f’ing prices need to be PUT OUT OF BUSINESS. Competition never hurt anybody ESPECIALLY the consumer. I hope a monument to Sam Walton is built right in the middle of Bedford.
I bet the majority of people who moved into those new condos were hoping some chain stores would move into their building.
I don’t have a huge problem with big business moving into a neighborhood in general. The only dick move I really saw in this particular store opening was the location moving directly across the street from an existing pharmacy.
The duplication of service isn’t a net benefit, it’s exactly what it is, two pharmacies across the street from one another. A grocery store of some sort would have made more sense in that space.
are there people who truly expect anything other than chains to take over the retail space in these new construction buildings?
I like the new Duane Reade model. There, I said it.