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Downtown merchants join forces to keep business alive
One Tuesday afternoon in July, merchants and community activists gathered over salad, pizza and lemonade to hash over an issue foremost in their minds: saving the Lower East Side’s mom-and-pop businesses.
The people at the meeting, hosted by the Lower East Side Business Improvement District, threw out all kinds of ideas to help merchants struggling in the recession. They suggested closing neighborhood streets once a week to cars, extending hours and even selling products online.
“Foot traffic has always been a problem, even before the recession, and now it’s compounded,” said Roberto Ragone, executive director of the Lower East Side Business Improvement District.
Indeed, the storefront vacancy rate in Manhattan is now at an estimated 6.5 percent, the highest level since the early 1990s, according to a recent report by Marcus & Millichap Research Services, a real estate investment services firm in Encino, Calif. That has prompted entrepreneurs and community groups to look for ways to attract customers.
The East Village is home to small, independent entrepreneurs, such as ethnic restaurants, bookstores and bargain clothing shops. The community has mostly kept large retailers out.
These days, however, more For Sale and For Rent signs are showing up on storefronts. The need is more urgent because the neighborhood is listed as one of America’s Most Endangered Places, according to the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
The goal now for many owners and workers is to simply stay in business. Grace Choi, an employee at Fancy Cleaners on 14th Street, once owned her own dry cleaning business for seven years. But she was forced to close her store last fall when the economy soured.
Jane Martinez, who runs East Village Grooming and Dog Daycare near Stuyvesant Town, said the recession has had a noticeable effect on her store. “People still come, just not as often,” Martinez said. To supplement her income, she takes in animals from Earth Angels, an animal rescue group that works outside a Petco pet store near her business.
Soojin Pai, who operates East Village Fruits and Vegetables, survives by using a tried and true business method. “I work hard, sell basic foods and get fresh products. I deal nicely with customers,” Pai said.
Elvie’s Turo –Turo, a restaurant that specializes in Filipino cuisine, is surviving while many other restaurants in the area closing down. Owner Carla Cinco said the key to her success is appealing to a wide ethnic market by offering traditional Filipino fare, such as salted duck eggs, alongside chicken pattie empanadas and barbecue pork. “Being in the East Village, you have to open your audience,” said Cinco, who operates the business with her mother and sister.
Other establishments have benefitted from online word of mouth. Jyoti Abdul, who runs Looks Threading Beauty Salon, said her store is seeing more business thanks to good reviews that customers post on Yelp.com.
Several non-profit organizations, such as Two Bridges and the Lower East Side Business Improvement District, are working with merchants to make the neighborhood more appealing to shoppers. They collect money from the stores to pay for landscaping, eliminating graffiti and picking up trash. “The Lower East Side used to be the best place to be for Sunday shopping and bargain shopping and it’s not that anymore,” Ragone says. “The challenge now is how to bring people here during the day.”
