Photos and reporting by Stacie Joy
And then there were none.
After 13 years on the Bowery between Third Street and Fourth Street, the 7-Eleven is closing its doors.
The posted signage states the store has permanently shuttered, though it was still open for business on Monday.
The cashier on duty said they'd likely be open until Friday.
Unlike the Avenue A outpost that had been slowly emptied out, there is still a lot of merchandise at the Bowery 7-Eleven...
The owner of the Avenue A 7-Eleven blamed the rampant thefts for his store's closure.
While an official explanation for the shutter wasn't offered on the Bowery, the cashier told me, "Things are very bad now."
"People — they're breaking things, stealing, scaring away customers at the door," he said while pointing to the entrance where there were several panhandlers. "Very bad."
The Bowery store opened in December 2011... and it was the first of four to open in the East Village, ushering in a wave of storefront suburbanization that repelled some residents. (On Avenue A, the No 7-Eleven group spoke out against the pending arrival of the multinational chain.)
The St. Mark's Place outpost closed in 2013, with 14th Street going in 2021.
Seven & I Holdings, the chain's Japan-based parent company, revealed in an earnings report last month that it would close more than 400 "underperforming" stores, CNN reported. The company did not provide a list of store locations, and it wasn't known if the two remaining East Village locations were on the list.
12 comments:
Another store closed, people out of jobs.... and all due to crime. We need to realize the most important issues for people and our community is safety and the economy. IMO we went too far with justice reform and other issues and totally lost site of public safety and hard working people.
A few good things I remember about 7-11 on the Bowery. When I needed one of those non-standard charge cords and they didn't have it at Best Buy on Houston Street (which also closed) they had one at 7-11. During the worst heat wave days in July, I could get a re-usable cardboard cup of ice at 7-11, while all the other convenience stores only had plastic cups. If the fried potato wedges had been sitting there on the shelf and getting stale, the folks at the cash register would be so happy to see those go that they would not even charge me. Ultra-high energy drinks with dangerous 300 milligrams of caffeine ("Reign of Terror") they kept in a locked case, for which I was grateful. Homeless guys asking for change at the front door, also, not a problem. Hand over your change and give thanks - there but for the grace of God goes you.
I think that there's a lot to unpack here. Franchises sell the "owner" a package where they hoover up half the take and leave them with most of the risk. The owner is really a kind of serf or sharecropper. There's also the matter of petty theft. My local Target has a uniformed cop there every day. So does the Lululemon by Columbia University. The perception of high crime and disorder is there and enforcement and prevention is at best uneven. You don't have to put high school students in jail to prevent it. Some street level prevention would be helpful and you can blame the NYPD for that. Under Adams they aren't exactly doing their job. You also have to take into account the serf takes all the risk and the corporates are running a protection racket that the old school Mafia would have been ashamed to run.
Not crime, or at least not crime alone. When the Wall Street dweebs take over half your receipts the guy who thinks he owns the store but is essentially a modern day sharecropper has no margins and already has no flexibility as he has to follow the contractural guidelines. Also there's a difference between prevention and prosecution,. The NYPD under Adams is doing nothing to prevent crime. They hang out in groups looking at their cell phones. You don't have to throw people in jail. You do have to make sure that there's a presence, especially when it's stupid teenagers.
Isn't the one on Broadway still open?
thank you Felton!
The franchise concept that 7-11 uses is absolutely nasty, but also I thought we really didn't want chain stores in the neighborhood (or, at least, no one would defend them against naysayers). Now the local resident businesses have less competition from corporations... so then what's the problem?
I'll never look at someone who shoplifts food and think "yeah they're really pulling a slick one on the rest of us". The franchisees get the worst of that deal, though. At least other shops in the neighborhood are only paying wholesale if a kid or an unhoused person sneaks out with something.
Sill open. 24/7, 311 Broadway, between Duane and Thomas.
Where the hell am I supposed to go now!?
This seems naive - if there are no penalties for committing a crime - what does police presence do? - they can not arrest or do anything and the criminals will just walk around them and make fun of them. If criminals know they may end up in jail or have other serious consequences they will think twice before committing a crime.
I feel sorry for the franchisees. But losing a neighborhood 7/11? Eh, hard to get broken up about it.
I used to go routinely on my way to work to get my fix for my energy drink addiction I used to have. Then, one day, I walked in and the store had locks on the fridge doors. I had to go up front. Ask someone to open. Wait for them to open it. Then have them stare at me while I pick my drinks out. It was a very unpleasant experience. Other locations have buzzer setups which are more convenient both for the employee and the customers. To boot, their prices had gone up (my understanding is that it's set by their distributor and not the site themselves). As for the panhandlers, they've been their(and at every other 7 Eleven in the city) prior to the pandemic so that should have no bearing on their closure.
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