As many of you likely noticed, Sustainable NYC has closed on Avenue A near East Ninth Street.
The eco-minded general store and café was closed for several days starting Aug. 1 … a sign pointed to an inventory.
And the store was open for awhile then this past Wednesday and Thursday. By Friday evening, though, workers were clearing out the space. There were some free shelves and tables for the taking.
On Sunday, the thank you note arrived on the door from the founder.
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[
Photo by Bayou]
We reached out to Valeria Patterson, an employee of the store for seven years who took over ownership in 2013. She said that she had been making monthly payments to the prior owner, but fell behind when business trailed off this year.
"I would love to keep going but we didn't have an agreement with the former owner," she said via email. "I wanted to run the store for many years more."
The store opened in March 2008.
With this closing, there are now four vacant storefronts between 139 Avenue A and 147 Avenue A. (The other storefronts being
Cafe Pick Me Up's two spaces and
La Lucha.) … not to mention
the several small shops on Ninth Street just west of Avenue A that Icon forced out with rent hikes.