Goodbye to George’s, “Greenpoint’s Favorite!”
I apologize for the dearth of entries. Last week I was on vacation, and this past week I have been under the weather. I am hoping that this two-week absence from paying attention to the neighborhood accounts for me completely not noticing that George’s Variety Store, a neighborhood institution, is gone.
No “going out of business” signs, no “EVERYTHING 50% OFF” (the usual warning). Just - gone.
I went out this afternoon, camera in hand, to take a few shots to accompany some pieces I’d wanted to write, and discovered, to my shock and horror, that George’s old-fashioned storefront windows were completely empty, the shutters half-drawn. As the sign advertised, George’s “Has Everything!” and the shopfront windows were always a barometer of the seasons and the changing times: in the winter, woolen hats and space heaters. In the summer, plastic sandals and beach toys. And last year, during the baseball playoffs, a Mets hat and a t-shirt were hurriedly stuck into the front-most corner of the window nearest the front door.
Even as it stood empty now, the signs on the front door still told stories. As I poked under the shutters to try to get a photo, an elderly woman stopped and questioned me: “What’s going on?”
“I don’t know, just that the store’s gone and it’s too bad, and I wanted to get a picture.”
Another grey-haired resident strolled up as we began to chat, and I just stood there and listened to the two of them.
Apparently “he got a price he couldn’t refuse,” is the neighborhood scuttlebutt. That this was once one building, but now it’s two, and the half that George’s sits in (a liquor store is on the ground floor of the other half) has been sold. The women said they rightly didn’t know what they’d do now that the store was gone: “Where will I get my clothesline?” And lamented some other closings that they just assumed I’d know by name: “Ed down the street, Sam–” she gestured down Manhattan Ave.
I need to come back in the morning when the cars are not streaking up and down Manhattan Ave., threatening to clip me in the rear as I stand in the middle of the road, trying to get a great shot of a great old sign : “Since 1938! Has everything! Greenpoint’s favorite!” It would be nice to think that this establishment will be replaced by something that will truly serve the community, but if I’d have to guess:
1) 99 cent store
2) Mobile phone store
3) It will sit empty for the better part of a year (because the price that couldn’t be refused will require a rent that nothing worthwhile can afford) and then we’ll get a nondescript miserable chain-based something that will not last 12 months before going out of business, leaving behind another empty shopfront, this time with no character whatsoever.
