Report: the number of chain stores decreased slightly this past year in zip 10003

From the EVG inbox yesterday …

The Center for an Urban Future [has] published the sixth edition of its annual “State of the Chains” study ranking the national retailers with the most store locations in New York City. The study shows that the expansion of chain stores across the city slowed considerably over the past year, even as Dunkin Donuts recently became the first national retailer with more than 500 stores across the five boroughs.

The report reveals that there was only a 0.5 percent increase in the number of national retail locations in New York City between 2012 and 2013, the smallest year-over-year increase since we began compiling data on the city’s national retailers in 2008—and down from a 2.4 percent gain between 2011 and 2012. Two boroughs — Manhattan and Queens — actually experienced a decline in the number of chain stores between 2012 and 2013. Overall, the 302 national retailers that were listed on last year’s ranking expanded their footprint in New York City from a total of 7,190 stores in 2012 to 7,226 stores in 2013, a 0.5 percent increase. This marks the sixth straight year there has been a net increase in the number of national chain stores in the five boroughs.

For the sixth consecutive year, Dunkin Donuts tops our list as the largest national retailer in New York City, with a total of 515 stores. Over the past year, Dunkin Donuts had a net increase of 39 stores in the city (an 8 percent gain). Subway is still the second largest national retailer in the city, with 467 locations across the five boroughs. It had a net gain of 28 stores since last year (a 6 percent increase). Rounding out the top ten national retailers in New York are: Duane Reade/Walgreens (with 318 stores), Starbucks (283), MetroPCS (261), McDonalds (240), Baskin Robbins (202), Rite Aid (190), T-Mobile (161) and GNC (138).

There are now 15 retailers with more than 100 stores across the city, up from 14 last year. Over the past year, 7-Eleven became the latest retailer with at least 100 locations in New York; it expanded from 97 stores in 2012 to 124 today.

Starbucks has more stores in Manhattan than any other national retailer, with 212 locations. In each of the other boroughs, Dunkin Donuts tops the list — it has 154 stores in Queens, 123 in Brooklyn, 72 in the Bronx and 32 on Staten Island.

Among the retailers with the largest numerical growth over the past year:

• Dunkin Donuts: 515 locations, up from 476 in 2012
• Subway: 467 locations, up from 439 in 2012
• 7-Eleven: 124 locations, up from 97 in 2012
• Starbucks: 283 locations, up from 272 in 2012

Overall, the 10003 zip (which includes Union Square and parts of Fifth Avenue) has the third-most chain stores in the city, according to the report… however, with 170 national retailers, the number has decreased by 9 from last year. The Center reports 46 chain stores in zip code 10002 this year, up from 36 in 2012.


[Click on image to enlarge]

Find the full report here.

Yuca Bar closed for a week-long renovation

If you're a fan of Yuca Bar, then do not be alarmed when you spot kitchen equipment in the restaurant's dining room this week... a sign on the door here on Avenue A at East Seventh Street explains that they are closed until Monday for renovations...

Vicky's Vietnamese Sandwiches has closed on East 2nd Street

Vicky's Vietnamese Sandwiches took over the Nicky's Vietnamese Sandwiches space on East Second Street just off Avenue A two years ago… and, as several readers have noted, Vicky's closed at the end of November. For rent signs are up, as you can see in the above photo. (By the way, you can still find a Nicky's in Manhattan down on Nassau Street.)

As EVG regular Salim lamented to us in an email, this is yet "another low-key, affordable shop going away" … joining the recently shuttered Cafe Rakka on Avenue B...



Fortunately, the renovated Rakka Cafe from the same owners has reopened on St. Mark's Place.

Something new to look at in the Mary Help of Christians lot

Well, while we await more news on the above residential complex at the former Mary Help of Christians property along Avenue A between East 11th Street and East 12th Street… might as well enjoy some new graffiti at the site!

These tags arrived some time during the past week or so. We took these photos last Friday...







...and via EVG reader Ruth… a fine addition!



As for the new 438 E. 12th St., there will be 158 residential units… and maybe a rooftop pool. So far, the DOB has twice "disapproved" the new building plans... the second "disapproved" is dated Monday, according to the DOB website.

Previously on EV Grieve:
New residential complex at former Mary Help of Christians lot may include rooftop swimming pool

Meet your new neighbor on Avenue A

Act like you've smoked pot before; act like you will smoke pot again some day

Catching up with New York magazine this week… from the Neighborhood News section.

Dining with today's hawk in Tompkins Square Park

Taffy, bubble gum or pigeon entrails… hard to say!



Photos by Bobby Williams

The New Yorker's seasonal love for McSorley's

Finally had a chance to see this week's issue of The New Yorker… which features a familiar sight on the cover: McSorely's. The illustration, titled ''Tis the Season," is by Istvan Banyai.

Here's more about it:

“I am almost as old as McSorley’s,” says Istvan Banyai, the artist behind this week’s cover. “It’s a quintessential New York landmark that still has a character,” he continues. … "I loved to go to McSorley’s when I lived in New York, before I moved to the woods in Connecticut. It has a lovely atmosphere, and it’s a good place to talk to strangers … and forget the Internet.

[H/t Spike and Anton]

A good sign?

Maybe some Santas have decided to retire in the face of all that political pressure about SantaCon… EVG regular William Klayer spotted this in the trash along East Ninth Street today… (And are Santa outfits recyclable?)

Previously on EV Grieve:
Local politicians call on SantaCon 'to adopt good-neighbor principles'

Red Hook Lobster Pound in the works for Extra Place

The highly regarded Red Hook Lobster Pound has plans to take over the recently vacated Oaxaca Taqueria space at 16 Extra Place. (Oaxaca Taqueria moved to East Seventh Street.)

According to documents on file ahead of next Monday's CB3/SLA committee meeting, Red Hook Lobster Pound, who is seeking a beer-wine license, will operate a quick-service restaurant here in the former alley behind CBGB ... with proposed hours of 11 a.m. to midnight Sunday-Thursday; until 1 a.m. on Friday and Saturday.

You can currently find the traditional Maine lobster rolls and chowders from the husband-and-wife team of Ralph Gorham and Susan Povich out on Van Brunt in Red Hook ... or in their food truck, Big Red, among other various Brooklyn flea markets.

With this and whatever Momofuku is opening down the alley/Place, Extra Place may finally become the dining destination its developers touted some six years ago.

[Image via Facebook]

Special feature: The East Village in 1967, 'walk into a sex, marijuana and LSD orgy'

Longtime East Village resident Anton van Dalen shared this clipping with us from the Daily News dated Feb. 8, 1967.

Titled "East Village Theme Is Now Love and Let Love," the piece begins with a bang, so to speak:

There was a time when you could knock on any of a dozen doors in the East Village and walk into a sex, marijuana and LSD orgy.

This "Special Feature" provides a snapshot of the area... from drug use to dating. You can click on the images for a better read of the article. It is well worth your time to do so.

A few excerpts by subject.

Dating:

Many of the relationships are interracial, with the usual coupling being a white girl and Negro man. At places such as The Dom, the Annex, the Old Reliable and PeeWee's Other Side interracial pickups and dating don't even raise an eyebrow.

A Negro writer who lives in the area described one East Village saloon as the "meat market" because because so many chicks from outside the area flock to it, as he said, "to prove how unprejudiced they are."

Drugs:

The artists, writers and hangers-on who take drugs lean toward marijuana and LSD. The slum-dwellers — those who live in the East Village because they have no choice — take heroin or cocaine if they take anything at all.

The "heavy" drugs bring the usual problems of muggings and burglaries, committed by addicts with expensive habits to feed.

Residents:

Strangely, the great majority of East Villagers are not from the underprivileged classes, trying to fight their ways to the top. Most of them come from middle class families or higher.

A local bank manager told Father Allen [of St. Mark's Church-in-the-Bowery] that many of the beatnik types are supported by their parents, drawing weekly allowances of up to $100.

Weekend tourists:

Most of these are not artists or writers. Ishmael Reed, whose novel 'The Freelance Pallbearers' is scheduled to be published by Doubleday in the fall, calls them 'A-trainers,' those who ride the subway downtown "to take their lessons in hip," then go back to where they came from.

Not everyone is scornful of the newcomers. Father Allen feels that "terrible tensions are being built up in the community."

He sees a "tendency to develop a 'we-they' attitude — 'we' when we think of ourselves, 'they' when we think of others."

We asked Anton, who moved to the East Village in 1967, for his thoughts on the article.

It's a fascinating read, this 1967 Daily News "special feature" story about our neighborhood. Beyond the shrill headline "Love and Let Love" is a good snapshot of the social revolution that took place here.

The last paragraph with naming this new culture "a kind of accidental laboratory" does call it right.

The East Village/Lower East Side by the early 60s was a largely poor and forgotten Eastern European neighborhood. But then because of its cheap rents and old-world immigrant charm came to be an attraction for counter-culture young. Mostly for young white people that sought to counter mainstream America which they felt disenfranchised by.

Out of that intermingling of old and new world cultures an unifying vision sprung of transcending cultural differences. Many, like me, came here because of wanting to be in the front row and watch up close this love revolution unfold a new way of life.

But then soon this spectacle of life drew many of us in to participate in this "accidental laboratory." In time I learned that our neighborhood had already for two centuries been a spawning ground for human social and political progress.

Last line says it well and still good today: "If we can work out our differences here, maybe there's a chance someplace else."

'Saved by the Book!' starts today to benefit St. Mark's Bookshop

St. Mark's Bookshop is holding a fundraiser to help them prepare for a move to a new location in the East Village, as Publishers Weekly first reported.

And here's information on the event via the St. Mark's Bookshop Facebook event page that we found:

We invite you to an Auction of Signed and Annotated First Editions to Benefit St. Mark's Bookshop

ONLINE AUCTION
Tuesday December 3 - Sunday December 15
LIVE EVENT
Thursday December 5 6-8 PM
$5 at the door

We are conducting an auction of over 50 rare signed and annotated first editions and ephemera from some of NYC’s best known writers. The auction will benefit St. Mark’s Bookshop, and help fund its upcoming move. Included are works from Yoko Ono, Anne Carson, Junot Diaz, John Ashbery, Patti Smith, Art Spiegelman, Walter Abish, Paul Auster, Bill Berkson, Charles Bernstein, Lydia Davis, Kenneth Goldsmith/Joan La Barbara, Richard Hell, Major Jackson, Wayne Koestenbaum, Phillip Lopate, Eileen Myles, Arthur Nersesian, E. Annie Proulx, Sam Shepard, Peter Straub, Lynne Tillman, Anne Waldman and Tsipi Keller.

Bidding begins December 3 online here

On Thursday Dec. 5, you are invited to come to the bookstore, where all the works will be on display for bidding and there will be a Live auction of selected works. If you can’t be present for the live event, you can leave an absentee bid online.

Join us and share wine and light refreshments.

The Bookshop is apparently moving to a new location near East Third Street and Avenue A (maybe here), though there hasn't been any information disclosed about this just yet...

Taking in Alphabet Plaza on East Houston

Crews showed up shortly after Hurricane Sandy last fall to start work on Alphabet Plaza, a 12-story mixed-used apartment building for East Houston and Avenue D. According to the DOB, the building will be 108,953 total square feet, with 9,640 set aside for retail.

We've watched it grow these past 13 months... Here are some photos 13 months later... looks like the crews have made it to the top...


[Bonus shot to the left of the new Karl Fischer-designed rental on 3rd St.]





Per The Real Deal back in January 2012: "The building, which will include some affordable units as part of the 80/20 program, will have a doorman, rooftop terrace, gym and outdoor space."

Apartments were reported to be in the $2,500 to $3,600 range.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Report: 12th-story 'Alphabet Plaza' in the works for Second Street and Avenue D