Reflections on owning and closing The March Hare on 9th Street

Photo by Ilana Wiles 

In April 2022, writer Ilana Wiles bought The March Hare at 321 E. Ninth St. between First Avenue and Second Avenue... taking over the whimsical toy store from the founders, who had to step aside for health reasons. 

The shop was around the corner from where Wiles, the founder of the blog Mommy Shorts, and her family lived. 

Wiles has announced that The March Hare is closing on Jan. 31.

"There will be a new shop taking over," she told EVG in a message. "We did not want to leave until we knew something was taking its place."

In her newsletter, Apparently, Wiles, who now lives in Tribeca, wrote about what brought her to this point.

Here are some excerpts: 

I knew this day would come eventually (I was anticipating some time in the spring), but as it turns out, our last day in this location will be January 31st. That’s because we decided to go month to month until the landlord found new tenants and he happened to find them rather quickly, which is a testament to how much different this block feels than when we first took over The March Hare a little over two and half years ago, in an effort to keep our neighborhood from having another small business with a closing sign on the door and cardboard covering the windows. The eagerness of the new tenants symbolizes to me that the March Hare has served its purpose, we fulfilled our promise to keep it going for the good of the community, and it has all come to its natural end. 

When we bought the shop in April of 2022, we did it for three reasons. The first, and most pressing, was to help out the previous owners who were a young married couple [Jason McGroarty and Karen McDermott] facing a health scare. They needed consistent capital to pay for their medical bills, which the toy shop did not provide. Selling the shop to us did just that. 

Plus, we let them phase out their inventory while still collecting income, helped fundraise for them through my online platform, and were happy to have them stay involved through part-time work for a paycheck. Since then, Karen's health has vastly improved and she is doing great. Jason now has a full-time job and has moved on. Everyone is happy and healthy.

The third reason [for buying The March Hare], which was probably the biggest ... was our desire to do something good for our community ... It was post-pandemic, and it felt like our city was falling apart. Families we knew were leaving left and right, mom-and-pop shops were closing at an alarming rate with nothing taking their place, and personally, we were feeling pretty isolated, as a lot of people were at that time. It was a time when we were rethinking our priorities and eager to make positive changes. 

Everyone said that buying the March Hare was a bad business decision, but we countered that it wasn’t about the money. It was about the community. And that’s how I elicited support from you all— buying something from the shop was not just a way to support me, it was a way to help keep small businesses alive in Manhattan. 

But then, something pretty wonderful happened over the course of these last few years— new shops started to open all around us on East 9th Street ... East 9th Street between 1st and 2nd Avenue is now a thriving block full of unique independent small businesses, so asking for support to help the March Hare stay open “for the good of the community” started to feel a bit disingenuous. The March Hare was just like any other business — it needed sales for our bottom line, which never did more than break even. 

I have always said that buying the shop was for the community. I meant NYC. But you showed me that my real community is so much broader than my neighborhood. We come from all over the world. I love you all. Thank you for supporting me through this chapter. 

The March Hare opened in November 2020. It carried on the tradition of Dinosaur Hill, the 37-year-old toy store on the block where Karen McDermott had worked. Dinosaur Hill closed in 2020 after owner Pamela Pier retired. 

As for a possible next iteration of The March Hare, Wiles is keeping her options open — perhaps continuing to exist online or as a pop-up.