This is a huge loss for the neighborhood and a sad sign of our times: Boomerang Toys, which has been on West Broadway for 24 years, will close at the end of the month, if not sooner.

Owner and Battery Park City resident Karen Barwick sent a note — and this had to be a tough decision, even if it was ab obvious one.

“We loved being a part of this community for the last 24 years,” she said. “Running a small business in the community where you live, raise your children, and spend your time, is so rewarding and we wouldn’t have wanted to do it in any other neighborhood.

“However, with the dominance of online shopping and the escalating costs of running a business in NYC, we just couldn’t make it work with rent and other costs factored in.”

Photo by Claudine Williams

Back in 2001, when Karen’s 4-year-old was going to a birthday party, a few of the moms spotted each other at the Toys ‘R’ Us in Union Square. “I woke up the next morning and realized I should open a toy store down here,” Karen told the TC in a Spotlight feature in 2016. (It’s worth a read for the Harvey Keitel story alone.) She opened on West Broadway and Worth in November of 2002, then moved to the current location at West Broadway and Duane in 2009. (She also had a store in the World Financial Center for five years.)

Over two and a half decades, Karen watched her customers grow up.

“Kids that were 3 or 4 when we opened are now in college,” she said. “Sometimes their parents still come in, which is nice to see.”

And as a business owner and resident, she never failed to give back to the community that supporter her all this time. “I love walking by the ballfields and seeing the store’s name on the jerseys.”