[
Photos yesterday by Steven]
Employees at the Associated on 14th Street in Stuy Town are telling patrons that this Monday (Dec. 9) is the last day. [
Updated: Employees are now saying Wednesday, Dec. 10. Updated 2: The store is closed as of Friday (Dec. 13).]
As one reader told us: "It is starting to look that way, though there is no sign of marked-down merchandise."
There weren't any store closing signs posted as of yesterday here between Avenue A and First Avenue ... though there is a notice that sale items/coupons will be honored at the Associated on Avenue C at Eighth Street...
News of this closure first surfaced
in September. The final day was expected to be somewhere at the end of November or early December, per
Town & Village.
Longtime store manager Norman Quintanilla told this to T&V in September:
“A lot of people are crying and upset about it,” he said. “It especially affects a lot of elderly customers that we help with phone orders. They don’t know where else to go.”
Quintanilla said that he wasn’t involved in discussions with Associated’s ownership and Blackstone regarding why the store is closing but he said that business has been steadily decreasing every year.
Joseph Falzon, the store’s owner, previously told
Crain's that a confluence of factors had cut business nearly in half. For starters,
construction on 14th Street for the L train obscured the supermarket with a 12-foot fence these past two years.
There's also increased competition, including the Target on 14th and A
that opened in July 2018 with a large food-and-beverage selection. In addition,
the Trader Joe's is expected to open early next year right across 14th Street. (Per the comments in previous posts on this closure, a good number of residents don't find the Target or Trader Joe's to be an adequate replacement for an old-fashioned supermarket.)
In an email in September, Stuyvesant Town General Manager Rick Hayduk told residents that they are "working on finding a new tenant with full understanding that a local grocery store is important to the community; but this will take some time."
Previously on EV Grieve:
The Associated on 14th Street in Stuy Town is said to close by year's end
