Comments on: West Side Mom-and-Pop Law Gets the Go-Ahead http://nypress.com/west-side-mom-and-pop-law-gets-the-go-ahead/ New York's essential guide to culture, arts, politics, news and more Mon, 04 Mar 2013 11:49:00 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5.1 By: jeremydz http://nypress.com/west-side-mom-and-pop-law-gets-the-go-ahead/#comment-16839 jeremydz Fri, 06 Jul 2012 15:43:00 +0000 http://nypress.com/?p=50290#comment-16839 There seem to be a lot of issues confused here. Game Stop is hardly a mom-and-pop store – it’s a 6,600 location chain based in Grapevine, Texas, wherever that is. It employs a handful of people in the neighborhood at low wages. At least Citibank or Chase are based here in New York, and have greater, higher-paid employee density for the square footage. The impact on the sidewalk experience is another matter, but from a local *economic* perspective, I don’t get why Game Stop would get preferential consideration over a Manhattan-based company like Barnes & Noble, or a financial services company.

The Zabar family made a big deal about refusing banks at 87th and Broadway, but we suffered through an extended period of vacancy (which is the *worst* for the sidewalk experience), and after all that, we ended up with a Brooks Brothers and a Ricky’s, neither of which scream “mom-and-pop.” Small, non-food retail (which seems to be the goal), just isn’t out there right now.

UWS residents have a responsibility to patronize the stores we want to see succeed, and UWS stores have to provide value that exceeds the unstoppable progress of internet retail. Murray’s success or failure won’t be about zoning – it’ll be due to the fact that people still value the phenomenal, personal service that they provide, and their killer nova.

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