Walentas Still Looking for a Mom and Pop Pharmacy for Dumbo
November 17th, 2006
From Brooklyn Papers: “David Walentas controls close to 75 percent of this former industrial neighborhood that he started buying up piece-by-piece decades ago – but he doesn’t own the new condo building that rented its ground floor to the caffiend from Seattle.”
“I hate that Starbucks,” Walentas told me just the other day, even though the joint has been open for more than a year.
“We already have the DUMBO General Store [which sells a similarly expensive, but far-superior, brew, in a quirky, uncorporate way] and the Coffee Box [another caffeine dealer two blocks away],” Walentas said of his tenants. “We don’t need that Starbucks.”
And that’s why he’s inviting – begging, actually” a suitably entrepreneurial Mom-and-Pop to come to DUMBO and open a pharmacy. Despite DUMBO’s nearly 10,000 residents and workers, the closest place to get a prescription filled is in Brooklyn Heights.
“Duane Reade would love to come in here, but we won’t have them,” Walentas said. “They’d pay whatever we ask, but we don’t need another place that sells Cokes and chips. We need a real pharmacy where they know you.”
{In land of Walentas, Mom & Pop are still king , BrooklynPapers.com, 11/18/2006}
Previously, Where’s the Dumbo Pharmacy?, DumboNYC.com
Photo from tizzie
7 Responses to “Walentas Still Looking for a Mom and Pop Pharmacy for Dumbo”
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November 17th, 2006 at 12:14 pm
Rock on, David. Almost unbelievable to have a developer who puts neighborhood character and experience over easy profits.
November 17th, 2006 at 12:25 pm
Agreed. But since he isn’t the only developer in the DUMBO, I wonder what is to prevent Duane Reade from setting up shop in a Boymelgreen, Guttman, etc. building.
November 17th, 2006 at 12:49 pm
I certainly agree with the sentiment, but we are in desperate need of a pharmacy in the ‘hood. I, for one, would welcome Duane Reade.
November 17th, 2006 at 9:08 pm
a clean well-lighted place to buy your chips soda and condoms– what’s wrong with that? maybe you don’t WANT your pharmacist to know your name! i hate when people are just being stubborn for no damn reason.
November 18th, 2006 at 9:11 am
The chain-stores-driving-out-small-business argument usually has to do with money flowing out of the community to some faraway corporate headquarters – i.e., Seattle (Starbucks). But DR’s HQ is in 10001 – that’s about as local as you get. So the argument here is the innate badness of chains?
September 5th, 2007 at 4:35 am
[...] saw some construction the other morning and a new sign put up (above photo). Mr. Walentas has been looking for a mom-and-pop-type pharmacy in Dumbo, but with Bridge Apothecary coming to J Condo and now Nate’s Pharmacy, does Two [...]
September 23rd, 2009 at 11:52 pm
Agreed. But since he isn't the only developer in the DUMBO, I wonder what is to prevent Duane Reade from setting up shop in a Boymelgreen, Guttman, etc. building.