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Robert Ripps book
History of Tribeca Buildings
Seen & Heard: The Food Emporium Deal Is Done
••• Craig Stock confirmed that the Best Market deal is done: “There hadn’t been any updates from any of the local Tribeca papers, so out of curiosity, I contacted Brian Kix, who is the VP in charge of store operations at Best Market (got his e-mail from the contact section at their website) and asked him if he could give me any updated information about it… I heard back from him over the weekend, and he let me know they did get it and will be opening at 316 Greenwich Street. He said it should open some time between late winter to early spring.”
••• Meanwhile, T. sent pix from the store’s last day, and Robert Ripps had this to report: “You could likely take the remaining visible inventory, and it might fill a shopping cart or two—it’s sad, like vultures picking over a corpse… Most aisles are blocked by signs, so you can’t walk down and see the tumbleweeds blowing down them.”
••• Robert also sent word that the Christmas tree vendor is already setting up on Greenwich. What took ’em so long? Whole Foods has had a display of gingerbread house kits since right after Halloween.
••• Friends of Washington Market Park’s Christmas Celebration is Dec. 5 from 2 p.m. to 3 p.m. Santa arrives by pedicab, then offers rides to kids, and there are refreshments and crafts. You can bring a new, unwrapped gift and it’ll be donated to a charity.
••• The new Netflix show “Jessica Jones,” which shot quite a bit around here, is now airing/streaming/whatevering. “Here is a nice shot of the star, Krysten Ritter, just above Bogardus Gardens. The graffiti on the mailbox is (mostly?) real, but the production added a ‘Zach’ tag to the bank, to fit the decaying city theme of the show. Done perhaps by the Zachary Zirlin in the graphics department?
••• I noticed this throuple’s plaque on a bench at Albert Capsouto Park the other day. I hadn’t realized you could buy one in any park, but you can: The info is here. Anyway, a gift idea.
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Food Emporium was weird towards the end – I went one day and all the cereals, even the weird granolas, were gone, except for Honey Smacks. Odd baby food and mint jelly remained until the end, and no one likes Dr Pepper, it was the very last soda pack to go.
I like the vagueness of the next opening – late winter could be May if we go by last year!
The store manager should have seen the writing on the wall years ago. The major issue here was that the checkout isles were too narrow to allow the Tribeca moms to push their strollers through. Removing one or two, (they never were all open at the same time) creating more space for wider checkouts, would have enabled those with children (all of Tribeca these days) to do some shopping there instead of traveling further down Greenwich to Wholefoods. Also, the cheese counter was in a terrible spot. It should have been pushed over where the beer shelves were. Creating an open space for the deli counter to be more visible. I was in the neighborhood for years before i realized there was a bakery hiding behind there.
the local management had no control over the store. headquarters dictated that it follow the food emporium model which was an outdated version of an upscale a&p. think 1960s upper east side modern.
what we need is a solid basic grocery with reasonable prices. hopefully, best market is smart enough to understand that they can only make it by supplying what whole foods doesn’t focus on: national brands.
p.s. the narrow lanes were put there to stop people from bringing shopping carts through them.
there was no writing on the wall. All Pathmarks and Emporiums went bankrupt. That is why it closed. Maybe all the new people should really open up their eyes. people lost their jobs, we lost our supermarket that has been their since there was a Tribeca.
Food Emporium arrived years after Tribeca began. It was a cause for celebration when they arrived.
Before them, some of us shopped at a supermarket (Sloans?) behind Police Plaza. It was the only downtown option.
Yes…it was Sloan’s. Hated walking all the way over there in foul weather.
Pre Food Emporium: Morgan’s Market — which was really an excellent butcher shop with benefits, Petrosino’s fish store on Duane St., Cheese of All Nations on Chambers St. and otherwise yes, to Sloan’s over near Police Plaza, a schlep to the supermarket on LaGuardia Place — or a subway ride up to the Village . . .
Also pre-Food-Emporium don’t forget Nolan’s little quasi general store on Greenwich just above Duane that not only sold packaged foods and household supplies but always had fresh roasted chicken and rice or other good stuff available. He never let anyone go hungry and gave credit to all the local pioneer artists when needed. The Emporium was a great boon to the neighborhood but it also put him out of business.