Whole lotta gentrification going on

  

NY Post

 

Ridgewood is losing its edge.

Some residents of the increasingly trendy nabe are furious as “corporate slop” Whole Foods plans to come to town, opening what could be its first outpost in Queens.

The upscale Amazon-owned grocery store chain recently inked a 15-year lease on the former Beaux-Arts historic bank building at 55-60 Myrtle Ave., according to documents filed with the city on Wednesday.

 The grocer takeover could mark the first Queens location for Whole Foods, though another location is slated to open in Long Island City in 2028. There are no operating shops in Staten Island or the Bronx.

The Ridgewood store will take up the entire 28,000-square-foot first floor of the three-story former bank on Myrtle Avenue, which housed a Rite Aid until the chain shuttered for good this year.

But some observers fumed about the announcement, expressing fears the “gentrification indicator” could be the final nail in the coffin for the hipster mecca.

“Oh man. The Brooklynization of Queens has begun,” Asad Dandia, a historian and walking tour leader, wrote on X.

“A Ridgewood Whole Foods… It might be over in ways I’ve never thought possible,” one user wrote on X.