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The NY Times takes a look at Smith Street and the corporate companies creeping into the area and setting up shop. The most recent big announcement is that Trader Joe's is taking over the old bank on Atlantic Avenue and Court Street. How long until more big fish come to feed?
Urban Outfitters originally wanted the new Trader Joe's property, so we suppose they'll be hawking "Ski Cobble Hill" T-Shirts soon enough. Just last week Lucky Brand Jeans opened a store on Smith Street, joining American Apparel, Flight 001 and, of course, a new Starbucks (which took over a dollar store). Mixed in with the corporate staples are smaller fashion designers with storefronts, condos and restaurants. While it's not quite as gentrified as Park Slope, interest in the hood is escalating, and some in the area actually refer to it as the West Village of Brooklyn ("sophisticated, refined and slightly bohemian").
This area of Smith Street, from Atlantic Avenue to Carroll Street, brings together Boerum Hill, Cobble Hill and Carroll Gardens (which some call BoCoCa...really rolls off the tongue, doesn't it?). The Times reports that "stores that rented for $50 to $75 a square foot earlier this year now are $100 or more" and by years end may be closer to $135 per square foot.
At those prices, hopefully the more interesting shops without corporate backing can stay open. Michelle Sauer and Jose Portes just opened Homage, a skateboarding shop and natural food cafe, in a storefront that housed a barber shop. If the upscale really do take over Smith Street and the Paris Hilton crowd ever shows up to drop some dough, you can be sure the heiress will pass right by Homage - as Michelle Sauer's father is the one that sent her to jail!
Photo of Starbucks on Smith St via Matt MacDonald's Flickr.
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This is happening all over Brooklyn, not just here. So sad. The "flavor" is getting crushed out of us. We're going to be the same as every other place.
*sigh* I miss Halcyon.
this is some fucked up shit. THe LES, Greenpoint, Park slope, bay ridge, cobble hill all look like the west village in the early 90's but with corporate storefronts. It's like globalization but only brooklyn and manhattan. The good thing is that it pushes the poor blacks out of the neighborhood.
Nice how neighborhoods that were once places where people moved to escape the boring big-box suburbs are slowly turning into them. What ends up happening is the franchise stores can pay higher rents, forcing the bohemian boutiques out. Catch-22.
Cobble Hill does not need another Starbucks! We already have 2. While it is nice to finally have a Trader Joes and not to have to go to Manhattan to do shopping, I hope the neighborhood doesn't become an outdoor mall ala Broadway-Lafayette.
When I first moved to Carroll Gardens almost twenty years ago , Smith St. was nothing but run down buildings and crack heads. I don't like generic America either, but it's better then squalor
Best to keep them all contained in one area like they did with strip clubs.
This is what happens when a bunch of Midwesterners move to Brooklyn with daddy paying the rent.
it's "than," you moron.
^ Caused ENTIRELY by "Sex and the City" reruns. I think that series did more damage to this city than anything else.
8 & 10 r right! residents may complain about these stores but they have no one 2 blame but themselves because they r the ones who will gladly patronize these places.
Starbucks do close, you know. If people don't go there, it will close. If people do, then the neighborhood *does* want it. Yes, I agree it sucks for the people that appreciate the local shops. Hopefully the neighborhood feels that way enough on the whole to not spend their money there.
For example, do you think it's just a coincidence that there are no Starbucks east of 2nd ave. in the East Village?
Shutup you whiney hippies.
If people didn't like Starbucks then they wouldn't go to it. But they love it, so they do.
However Brooklyn will always suck. No matter how many "corporate" looking stores and restaurants move in it's not like the projects are going anywhere. You're still gonna get harrassed and have shit thrown at you when you try and walk home at night. Apparently it's especially bad if you're Asian.
it's "than," you moron.
No more editors are allowed to comment on Gothamist effective in 10,9,8,7...
Wasn't gothamist one of the ones applauding and standing in line for Trader Joe's on 14th st? Make up your mind, people.
To conclude, Trader Joe's is not a last standing bastion of indie altruism and Urban Outfitters isn't eating babies (they're just lame). So get over it.
Corporations are evil man. Lets go back to bartering for our goods. Down with the evil dollar!
Hello?! Bad grammar should be the least of our concerns (#9) when people like #3 are cheering the flight of "poor blacks" from the neighborhood. When I moved to Dean Street seven years ago, many of the poor blacks, Puerto Ricans and Arabs I lived with were lovely people who enriched the neighborhood in ways no skateboard shop ever could. It's unlikely that a white-bred girl from Seattle like me will ever live in such diversity again.
#18 - many of the poor blacks enrich themselves to my wallet when they rape my mother.
Corporate and 'indie' (how is selling the same corporate products as a chain/franchise make you any different just because it's independently owned) gentrification both take away just as much flavor.
What you have an issue with is your concept being abandoned for the common. Get over it, commercialism will flatten culture regardless of what flavor it comes in.
Why do so many racists read Gothamist?
West Village of Brooklyn? lol....
Good question, Gregoire. You'd think if they hate diversity so much they'd live somewhere else.
why can't everyyone tolerate my intolerance? I'm all for diversity, I just hate poor ghetto black people that keep trying to rob my ass. I used to be all liberal and like "OOHHH you are so racist! Black people aren't like that!" until I moved to the city and Black people were trying to steal from me, be racist to me, and trying to molest and rape me all the time. now I know it's true. Black people are like that. you do have your cosby's once in a blue moon but for the most part black people suck.
OH NOES! The neighborhood is not 'real' anymore; what are the hipsters going to do? I mean they really can't be seen near a Starbucks venue, can they?
When the hell did NYC turn into a playground for the "we're all collectively unique by wearing thrift store stuff" crowd. Please grow up, cliques are for highschool kids.
On a different note (my other post is right above), I actually had a discussion of the lunch about the lack of middle class in manhattan. I really do believe it's mostly due to young females living out their "sex and the city" fantasies on their parents' budget. I keep seeing these people with 35K/yr salary creating the demand for 1700/mo places in murray hill and UES. People that don't make 45x the rent should not be allowed to rent the place, it's as simple as that.
Unique in new york lasts .03 seconds. Then it's on the rack at urban outfitters for 39.99
oh jeeez, stifle it.
another i was not racist until I moved to NYC story.
enough already, edith.
"On a different note (my other post is right above), I actually had a discussion of the lunch about the lack of middle class in manhattan. I really do believe it's mostly due to young females living out their "sex and the city" fantasies on their parents' budget. I keep seeing these people with 35K/yr salary creating the demand for 1700/mo places in murray hill and UES. People that don't make 45x the rent should not be allowed to rent the place, it's as simple as that."
The reason rents are so out of control here in Manhattan is all the freakin foreigners who buy/rent up all the property for either their Persian "oil rich" kids or as a small vacation home they only use once a year.
As they build on the backs of their poor these evil foreign interlopers are doing nothing but leaving perfectly good housing sit unaffordably empty.
wtf on #29?
Well, the NY Times is on the pulse of another cultural phenomenon yet again. Fancy stores on Smith Street, who knew?!
no kidding, I've never met a young kuwaiti who I didn't like.
I'm sure the dubais are a-holes, too.
"I just hate poor ghetto black people that keep trying to rob my ass. I used to be all liberal and like "OOHHH you are so racist! Black people aren't like that!" until I moved to the city and Black people were trying to steal from me, be racist to me, and trying to molest and rape me all the time. now I know it's true"
You actually sound like you have mental problems. Log off and go check into a hospital, you hag.
Maybe you all prefer check cashers, liquor stores with plexiglass, fried chicken holes, $.99 stores and hair extension shops??? Enjoy the development you losers. It's called progress.
now you know it's true,
oooo oooo ooo,
I want my fried chicken joint, my jamaica restaurant, my bodega with a kitty, and my 99 cent store for TP.
and yes I want my check casher, too. and you know why, wink wink. wooohoooo, I'm over here mr. marshal.
and, molon labe.
Smith street is sooo weird. Our first apartment in the city in '95 was on Hoyt, one block over. Smith was a torn up shithole (they were doing lots of construction) but our realtor told us prophetically that it would be upscale sometime soon. Our main problem was that nobody would freakin' deliver from Court St. to our block, we got redlined by Buddy's & that shitty Chinese place. We moved out just as the first nice restaurant (Savoia, I think) was going in.
Ah, good times. I have a hard time caring about what happens to it now - it's already like another planet.
Oh, and BTW, it's not all about "Sex and the City" - there's also the lure of music, art, and employment and shit. Pretty much everybody wants to live here and nobody wants to live in Cleveland.
"However Brooklyn will always suck. No matter how many "corporate" looking stores and restaurants move in it's not like the projects are going anywhere. You're still gonna get harrassed and have shit thrown at you when you try and walk home at night. Apparently it's especially bad if you're Asian."
Huh? Have you ever actually been to Brooklyn? Let me know when you're on my block so I can throw some garbage at you.
Oh and back to guest#13, I didn't know that Brooklyn was comprised solely of projects. Who knew?!!! It only took 30 years of living here to learn that from the trolls on Gothamist.
And don't even get me started with guest#24. I second JMH on that one.
Will someone please explain why they think the 99-cent store was so much better than a Starbucks?
At least I can use the bathroom and get free ice water at Starbucks (since I don't care about the coffee). Plus, there are still plenty of 99 cent stores all over this neighborhood for those of you who like cheap crap. Also, I know Starbucks are corporate, boring, and take away from the uniqueness of a neighborhood. But THIS PARTICULAR Starbucks is replacing a store that was crappy, boring, and looked exactly like every other 99 cent store in NYC.
We don't have Starbucks in Greenwood Heights/South Slope/North Sunset Park. We are awesome.
I dont mind when one Starbucks comes into a neighborhood. I mind when six or twelve of them do, on every corner.
The LES Starbucks on Delancey is actually a nice addition to the neighborhood, certainly no worse than the crappy Burger King or four hundredth Duane Reade. I still prefer going to locally owned coffeeshops, and will only even consider Starbucks of the other places are closed or ultra crowded.
paul, #29 is right, but he forgot 2 mention the weak dollar. google it.
I realized something. Half of these neighborhood names didn't exist 20 years ago.
Learn something every day.
-Ph
#38 - Do you mean Me and My Egg Roll? I have been on the wrong side of Hoyt for almost 18 years now and I remember those days. I also remember when Buddy's opened and we were so excited that there was another delivery option until we found out they wouldn't cross Hoyt. We offered to meet them on the corner of Hoyt but that was a no go. After much cajoling they did finally agree to deliver that one time.
oh happy day! oversimplified comments teeming with hyperbole on gothamist!
i'm from the midwest. i live in brooklyn. i rarely (*maybe* 6 times a year) go to starbucks. in fact i know more than a few native new yorkers (the golden ones who can do no wrong!) who drink starbucks almost daily.
my current gripe against the over-corporatization of the city/country/planet (besides the bland homogeneity) is that i think it's a myth it makes one's life more convenient or better serviced. i've had plenty of bad experiences at national corporate chains where they seem to operate at 75% capacity, because they know that if they don't have what you need they can always send you to one of their many other outlets. this easily becomes an unproductive wild goose chase when you have to hunt down the 1 location in the city that has what you need.
I never go to Starbucks, but I don't really care if other people do. New York is turning into an American version of Dubai, so what does it matter?
I think the oversaturation may be causing people to overreact about Starbucks. As far as having one on every corner, I agree with [48] and others about the homogeneity. (I don't really NEED three of them within two blocks of my office.)
But on a small scale, they're not so bad. They're not a bad employer to have around for job-seekers (they give health benefits to qualifying part-time employees and provide 401(k) matching; Fortune Magazine consistently ranks them one of the best companies to work for in the country); they don't tear down old buildings to put in new stores; they provide reasonably clean bathrooms you can use without buying anything. I can think of companies I'd be less pleased to see opening locations near me.
I'm not saying it's good or bad...but they wouldn't put these places around town if there weren't such astonishing demand for them.
If you're not into it, tell your neighbors to stop going there so often.
Good for them ! This is what happens when you invade a neighborhood and turn it into something it's not and something you want ! I admit, Some change is a good thing, Just on a moderate scale ! What's going to happen on Smith Street is the same thing that happened in Brooklyn Heights, Bay Ridge, Park Slope, Etc. Let's see how the folks that invaded that neighborhood displacing those that were there for decades deal with the prospect of being priced out themselves ! Because you don't have to be an Economics Major to know that when Corporate companies start moving in the general lifestyle of the neighborhood changes dramatically ! Posted by; "Still Not Amused"
people seem to not understand that hipsters hate corporations and move to brooklyn because its "real" and no suburban America. The majority of them are also poor and end up living in a tiny ass apartment with their gf. Hipsters dont have trust funds and wherever that came from has always confused me.
maybe thats just me tho.
To quibble with the article, the corner of Court and Atlantic is in Brooklyn Heights, not Carroll Gardens. Its two blocks from Smith Street.
Also Trader Joe's is replacing a bank, on one of the more boring and dismal stretches of street in the city (Court Street between Borough Hall and Atlantic). This really doesn't belong in a piece on Smith Street, which I agree is slowly getting ruined, if it wasn't "over" a few years ago when Halcyon closed.
#13 is the biggest moron ever. "Brooklyn sucks"
"it's not like the projects are going anywhere.
You're still gonna get harrassed and have shit thrown at you when you try and walk home at night."
I've been living in Brooklyn for 9 years and not only are the "projects" you speak of way out in the middle of nowhere (yes, a side-effect of low-income), the majority of Brooklyn is safe. In fact, the only people I know personally that have ever been mugged have been in Manhattan. End of story.
Well it used to be MY neighborhood until all you rooineks came over from England. Now all the farms, fens, and fields are gone and it's nothing but streets and buildings. Why must progress advance, we don't need Mr. Edison and his big-corporate electrical devices. Bring back stables and dirt streets ankle deep in horse manure and cholera.
Yours- cranky Dutch farmer trying to eek out a living in New Amsterdam.
You are sooooo far off it's criminal, Poster #[53] ! The only reason's for those "Yuppies" and the rest of you "Out of Towners" Moving into the outer borough's has to do with the fact that {A}-> You can't afford the outrageous rents currently charged to live in the city ! Because {B}-> You all realized that it's not worth paying it if Ur going broke every month ! Then you factor in {C}-> There will always be someone with more money, OR Wealthier Parents . To pay the rent so the Landlords don't need you, If you can't pay their price then they will find someone for whom will ! Finally {D}-> You probably were sitting back somewhere analyzing Ur current predicament and arrived at the following conclusions . You either move back home to Mommy, & Daddy & face facts that big city life was just not Ur "Cup Of Tea" . If you feel that you can still make it on Ur own you decide to move to what you perceive to be a "Poor Neighborhood" & set-up shop ! Where you will drive-up the rents forcing those living there before you to either pay up, Or Move out ! Resulting in some of them treating you like shit, & Or trying to Rob you at every turn ! (I don't wish for things of that nature, but it has happened before .I witnessed a Family of six chase and beat the hell out of this couple because they moved in to their building complained about them sitting on the stoop . This resulted in the Landlord using the complaints to get a judge to evict them for ""Creating a hazardous venue, & Depleting the property value "" So she could drive up the rent .) So please don't use the whole "Real" B.S. to sell the reason you moved Out of the City . It just comes off sounding Really Cheap ! Posted By; "Still Not Amused"
As long as Flight of the Conchords is on tv, i'm happy....