A number of popular Forest Hills stores and restaurants have shuttered recently, prompting some residents to worry their neighborhood may be losing its unique character along with its mom-and-pop stores.
“I feel that Forest Hills is losing its class and distinctive nature and becoming a more predictable and generic community,” said Michael Perlman, a local resident and historian.
Danny Brown Wine Bar and Kitchen on Metropolitan Avenue, which was awarded a coveted star in the Michelin Guide, was unable to renew its lease and will close by the end of the year.
It will follow several other longtime restaurants in the area, including Pasta Del Giorno on Austin Street, as well as Uno Pizzeria and Santa Fe steakhouse on the so-called Restaurant Row on 70th Road, between Austin Street and Queens Boulevard — all of which closed after decades in business.
Brandon Cinemas, a two-screen movie theater on Austin Street, closed last year, as did the nearby Strawberry clothing store earlier this year. Barnes & Noble is set to close in January.
Some venues are replaced quickly with similar types of establishments, like Mexican eatery El Coyote which took over for Garcia’s Mexican Cafe on Austin Street. The new restaurant Rove is also replacing Bonfire Grill, which closed earlier this year.
But in some cases, like Santa Fe, storefronts remain empty for months. Other venues, including Brandon Cinemas and Pasta Del Giorno, have been taken over by banks and walk-in medical facilities. Barnes & Noble, on Austin Street, will be replaced by a Target.
17 comments:
High end blight comes to Forest Hills, this is similar to what's going on in the village in Manhattan. Mom and pops and modest businesses that are essential to the area being forced to shut down because the property pimps are jacking up the rents 5 times because these scumbag lowlifes would rather have a national chain like dunkin donuts or another bank, thus leaving the metal gates down and then becomes a makeshift room for resourceful homeless people to set their cardboard shelters in front. It also devolves into a garbage or clothing donation bin and acceptable street art (formerly known as graffiti).
The social darwinism of city-engineered gentrification has arrived to devalue your homes, residents of forest hills. Better get vigilant fast.
Unless a mom and pop store owns the site they're in , their days are numbered. Rent gouging is a property owners business , not selling wine or being in the Michelin guide.
That's real....realty....real estate life.
Historians are merely the observers and writers of time passing.
Many have a morbid genetic make up.
Bid Ye Olde Forest Hills goodbye.
Everybody shops online....orders their food from Fresh Direct or Pea Pod...downloads music...streams entertainment, etc.
The need for local yokel mom and pops have vanished in the brave new 21st century.
Yes, it's sad that uniqueness is fading in a lot of communities, but it is partially our fault.
Do we patronize local establishments enough for them to be able to afford their rent?
Do we spend too much time online? Have we become a new generation of couch potatoes...a new breed of robotic tech drones ourselves?
It seems to me that we humans have become robotized ourselves and have lost our own unique characters.
RIP....all of your mom and pop's Ye Olde nabes. Welcome Walmart, banks, drug chains.
Like it or not, this is the future.
Demographics are changing there too.
The parking sucks!
So businesses are relying mostly local customers...
The first time I see a Target shopping cart sitting abandoned on the sidewalk near 71 Av, I will go nuts!
That personalized touch is not gone yet at my local CVS. The sweet little Filipinas behind the pharmacy counter all greet me by name with a smile on their faces when I come to get my Viagara.
georgetheatheist wrote: "That personalized touch is not gone yet at my local CVS. The sweet little Filipinas behind the pharmacy counter all greet me by name with a smile on their faces when I come to get my Viagara."
Praise the Lord. Thank God for Viagra.
Not for nothing but the "Mexican" food at Santa Fe sucked balls and the steaks weren't that much better. And Pizzeria Uno is a chain anyway. I ate at Tazzini on Metro last weekend and it was awesome. Will most certainly go back. Danny Brown's prices were through the roof.
Viagara? Sounds like time to visit your favorite cardiologist.
You have some serious blood circulation issues :):):)
The rents are high in Forest Hills. Mom and pop stores cannot survive.
Target is a joke.
This weekend at the College Point target 2 girls came in with a dog! and the dog defecated right in the middle of the store. Why are dogs allowed in the store?
Cheap merchandise, mostly from China, lots of Mexicans at the checkout lines.
Some classy store.
Ain't globalism great?
So Barnes and Noble is a Mom and Pop store now?
I think I ate at that restaurant a year ago. Pretentious and over priced. The portions were so small I almost stopped for a Big Mac on the way home. Only the phony foodies will miss it.
I will miss the variety of stores.
George, don't ever change.
oh no
not danny brown!
anybody know where he is going?
i wish he would reopen in the triangle hofbrau location but i fear its historic rooms are beyond repair!
The area will look like Flushing's Main Street in 5-10 years, foreign language signs and all.
Barnes and Noble is a whole other issue.
It is a Dinosaur. People read tablets not books these days.
They over expanded into every mall they could.
Now they pay the piper. Sales could not pay for all that rent.
If you nostalgia neurotics want history preserved,
move to Old Sturbridge Village. Colonial times are frozen there.
Mom and pop stores are meant to disappear, they are too expensive and also they pay the lowest wages.
Some mom and pop businesses and "corporations" should also disappear when they are ran like a mom and pop store, there's no future in these kind of companies.
It's sad to see the neighborhood changing but cuteness doesn't pay the rent, so, goodbye and don't come back.
People read tablets not books these days.
Really? Check that premise here.
Some good news. Aigner's candy shop will reopen on Oct 22.
I hope Aigners chocolates lowers their prices. They are so darn expensive for such a mediocre product.
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