Vox Pop Teeters On The Edge
“Finally, a local hang out for the likes of me” is the caption accompanying this photograph on Flickr, encapsulating the excitement a lot of people in the Ditmas area felt when Sander Hicks and Holley Anderson opened Vox Pop at 1022 Cortelyou Road in 2004. The cafe’s arc has mirrored the real estate market at…
“Finally, a local hang out for the likes of me” is the caption accompanying this photograph on Flickr, encapsulating the excitement a lot of people in the Ditmas area felt when Sander Hicks and Holley Anderson opened Vox Pop at 1022 Cortelyou Road in 2004. The cafe’s arc has mirrored the real estate market at large, thriving for several years until falling on hard times recently. The popular neighborhood gathering spot is three months behind on its rent, the phone is disconnected and it lost its food and beverage license recently because of $29,000 in unpaid fines to the health department. We’re in trouble,” says Debi Ryan, the person brought in to try to straighten out Vox’s problems.
A Cortelyou Cafe Struggles to Stay Afloat [NY Times]
Photo by CocteauBoy
filmmer – cute annecdote – could you just tell me the relevance to the charges that he is a deadbeat who doesnt pay his rent, his workers on time or his fines for violating health and safety codes?
I am very happy to call Sander Hicks a friend. He has a lot of them. There are a lot of negatives being thrown at Sander on this thread so let me just tell you about the last time I hung out with him and his son.
We had gone to the children’s museum with our kids and were coming back up Myrlte Ave. As we crossed Franklin we spotted a disoriented looking man standing on the corner in the light rain. There was blood spouting (with each heartbeat a little spritz joined the misty rain) out of his head and all of the people on street were taking pains to avoid him. Sander pulled over – dialed 911- leapt out of the car and took the man in his arms – applied direct pressure to the bleeding until the cops arrived. It seemed that the man has been drinking with a friend who bashed his head in. The cops slowly put on gloves and frankly treated this guy like a bag of crap. Sander continued to comfort and support him until the paramedics arrived. They too saw a drunk mexican rather than a person in need and took their sweet time taking over from Sander. Sander didn’t seem to notice- he just stayed focused on making sure that the man was calm and comfortable.
Yes- Sander might not be the most organized business person. I’ll tell you this though- If you opened a pro-life coffee shop on Cortelyu he’d come in and buy a coffee the first day to help you get your business off the ground. He’d pop back by the next day to see if you needed any other help.
Brenda, solid points. I’ve been there several times and always found the combo bookstore/coffeeshop odd…wow that sounds weird to type out…but like they would have Bantam Classics and just your average everyday B & N-type stock for sale, like there was some kind of market for those??
brenda youre right. i dont know the owners personally, but the self-righteousness of the far left (im moderate) gets a really special elevated kind of disdain from me when they end up failing to pay wages (livable wages now!!) and be the good neighbors they tell everyone else to be.
“they rarely got paid when they were suppose to”
Always a bad sign.
if this place was opened in 1968 everyone would be shitting a brick about its closing. Coffee doesnt equal “gentrification” it just equals coffee. People like to drink it and eat baked goods. They have since people started drinking coffee.
One more thought after reading the Times article: Had Vox Pop been anything other than what one participant described as a “lefty Starbucks” (like, say, a real Starbucks), the entire story would be one of Horrible, Terrible Gentrification. The founder, Sander Hicks, is quoted as saying his goal was “smart growth, not gentrification,” but this elusive goal remains unexplained. The article quotes a nearby shopkeeper approvingly noting the “new, nice people” it attracted, and the Times holds its hankie to its nostrils in describing the check-cashing places and 99-cent stores that dominated the strip a few years ago. Apparently these “code words” for Horrible, Terrible Gentrification are neutralized when the gentrifying latte-vendor has the chutzpah to slap down a little radical chic along with the sugar and half-and-half. Unlike real, evil Starbucks, however, the sainted Mr. Hicks apparently neglected to pay Health Department fines and, upon occasion, his own employees, and ran his business into the ground through feckless management. A true man of the people. For those who miss the unique blend of ideology and shabby chic, I suggest wearing a Che t-shirt and doing take-out from Connecticut Muffin while mumbling audibly about the need to prosecute Bush for war crimes.
do pro-life people hang out in coffee shops and plot to over thrown the government?
To be honest… I don’t know if Vox Pop was ever “thriving.” If they were ever thriving, they probably would have paid their fines before it forced them to shut down.
Goldie is spot-on, it’s just poor business management. Nothing to do with the neighborhood (there’s plenty of money it seems) or the goofy political mission (which was not in-your-face if you didn’t want it to be)