Another day and another Mom and Pop store closes on Court St.
Mastellone House of Meats is closing this Wednesday. This is where I would go to get cold cuts and meat and all my stuff especially since Good Food closed down. Now I used to do the taxes for them and I knew they were taking a hit from the hipster joint "Union Market" that opened across the street. The young douches in the neighborhood would rather go and pay twice as much then give the old time people their business. The old Italians that had shopped there ever since it was on Columbia St. are almost all gone now so they sold out. I don't know who bought it. They had sold it once before to some Koreans but I don't know if it is going to stay a deli. They own the building so it could be anybody just like Good Food rented it to a bank.
Little by little the scale has turned to make this neighborhood just like Manhattan. It will be all chain stores and banks soon. No more Mom and Pop.
Time to ramp up the exit strategy.
30 comments:
It was always a pain for me to get down to brooklyn cause I had a bike, but when I did, I went to places like this and liked them. I haven't been back to the city in many many years, but if a place like this closes down it makes Brooklyn that much more diminished. For the record, hipster-douchebags are like that for a reason.
I always taught my kids to support independent businesses. Instead of Starbucks go to a local shop, subs go local, etc. They actually listen to me on that.
I could see Paulie Walnuts sitting on that bench outside working on his tan.
What's there today on Court St will be gone to Maui.
Lisa's store would likely do very well in a lot of locations. I do not see the attraction of living in New York City where most of the good things are gone (or going) and you are left with high taxes and rents, government interference, and douchenozzel politicians.
I favor local when I can. Especially on restaurants.
Hardware stores and the like are mostly all gone.
North Beach in San Francisco has only vestigial remnants of its original Italian heritage. When we were last there in 2005, we took the kids to an old neighborhood park near the church where Joltin' Joe married Marilyn Monroe. It was a weekend, but there were very few other kids besides our two there. The park was filled with shirtless, hairless posers and pet dogs. HIPness abounded.
It is mostly gone from San Francisco and also from Little Italy in Manhattan, which is almost completely swallowed up by Chinatown. But what do you expect? Italians stopped emigrating and now they are barely procreating at all back in Italy.
North Beach in San Francisco has only vestigial remnants of its original Italian heritage.
Alas. At least there's still Liguria Bakery and Molinari's.
It is mostly gone from San Francisco and also from Little Italy in Manhattan
What about Boston's North End? Haven't been there since the 90s.
Boston's north end is also intact like North Beach. In some of the smaller cities it's also the case. Wooster St. in New Haven was the last time I was there but hell, that's the 90's. Providence I believe still has some intact Italian neighborhoods. The Hill in St. Louis remain a strong enclave of paisans playing bocce. The Italian food gets more Americanized when you're in the Midwest, but The Hill, where Yogi and Joe Garagiola grew up, has some decent restaurants surrounded by neat as a pin dago houses. However, St. Louis pizza has saltine like crust, which like all pizza, is good if you grew up eating it.
But what do you expect? Italians stopped emigrating and now they are barely procreating at all back in Italy.
Hipsters aren't procreating either but they are filling American cities so they must be emigrating from somewhere. Soon we'll have to rename districts after them.
Trooper, your store would be a knockout if it was relocated to State Street in Madison. I'll help pick the location.
Haz, We have a lot more large women in Wi. than just about anywhere. Men also.
Then Trooper can have a regular cocktail hour w/ Larry and Annie. However, there is no way Trooper would even take a trip to Wi., much less move here. Hell, he won't go over the GW Bridge.
There are a lot of big girls in Madison. Too bad you don't franchise.
The next Lee Lee's will be in Hawaii.
No snow.
Guy's, if we all pitch in, I think we can make some more Italians!
Who's with me?!
Would it help or hurt your biz if you worked out an endorsement deal w/ Sydney Leathers?
@blake, count me out as long as their fathers are around.
Nick and Evi - Exactly right. Wisconsin is a natural market for LeeLee's. It's a can't-lose proposition. Trooper ought to cancel his Labor Day vacation and get over here to check for locations. I'm thinking something on Sate Street - nestled among the bars and burger joints and pizza joints and gyro joints.
Of course, he'd have to come up with some Bucky Badger print dresses for football weekends. It'd work.
Plus, there's an Olive Garden in Madison to take the place of Marco {Polo.
is there a proper pizza parlor in Madison that cooks the pie at the regulation distance from the regulation type of cinder pile at the regulation temperature?
Haz used to mange the pizza joints at both ends of town so maybe he knows.
Pizza Bruta in Madison.
Pizza Bruta in Madison.
So Lisa opens a dress shop and Trooper opens a proper pizza joint. The Trooper York blog turns into a reality TV show mocking liberal hipsters in Madison which is a microcosm for DC urban hipsterism. Colorful "locals" like Spinelli, AllenS, the secretive Evi, and myself in absentia, get exposure. Everybody gets rich until it gets old.
(Haz should have been listed above)
There's even a a joint on Regent St. with the words "Italian Workingman's Club" chiseled in stone over the doorway that could site the pizza parlor.
Here's the clubhouse: link
@Spinelli: I've been by that place countless times but never inside. Have you?
The bar is located in the midst of the former "Greenbush" area which was the Italian ghetto at the turn of the 20th Century. Lots and lots of Italians immigrated to Madison then to build the "new" capital building. There's much more in a book I mentioned called "Old World Wisconsin" here.
The next Lee Lee's will be in Hawaii.
This shop isn't associated with you?
It is a dress shop for bigger ladies and a pizza joint!
Wow. Another place going away. Holy crap!
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