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
Rock on, David. Almost unbelievable to have a developer who puts neighborhood character and experience over easy profits.
Rock on, David. Almost unbelievable to have a developer who puts neighborhood character and experience over easy profits.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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?
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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.
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.