This is New York City and for all that it has to offer, there is a price to pay. Physically, mentally and financially, we pay to be in New York City. Obviously, if it wasn’t worth it, none of the 8.4 million people here would do it.
Having said that, sometimes the price to pay is too much and greed gets the best of some people; especially those damn landlords. In this piece, we’d like to take a look at some of New York’s best that have closed for business because of rising rents and the costs of doing business in New York City. We’re not going to focus on CBGB’s and all the hoopla around famous venues but a few that are near and dear to us.
Kim’s Video & Music: If you haven’t visited Kim’s in the East Village before they closed, we are sorry to say that you missed out. They had an ‘interesting’ selection of CDs, records and movies that catered to die hards and nerds. We miss it.
Gray’s Papaya: 8th Street hasn’t been the 8th Street that we’ve known for quite some time. There are fond memories of getting our fake IDs as kids and grabbing a recession special dog. Note that there is still a Grays on 72nd and Broadway.
Subway Inn: The ultimate dive! It’s been on 60th Street near Bloomingdales since 1937 but they too could not last. The great news here is that one of our favorite watering holes has taken over the space on 2nd Avenue and 60th Street; remember the old Blue Room with Atomic Wings? Wings are still there but now the Subway Inn is the Blue Room which is awesome.
Again, we are not here to profile the landmark tenants being booted by rising rents but wanted to talk about a few our old faves that make us smile. New York will forever be changing whether we like it or not and whether we need more TD Banks and Duane Reades, or not. We love it and deal with it because it’s New York and we’re New Yorkers.
Make sure to stop by the Subway Inn; you’ll find us with our faces covered in hot sauce holding a cheap pint of beer.
@newyorkeventsco