Strolling down 22nd Street pushing a stroller with my charge, I strike up a conversation with an accompanying mom of two. The subject is the number of stores closing in the community. “Are you aware that the hardware store on the corner of Ninth Avenue and 23rd Street will be closing in 3 months?” she asks. It was my turn to be shocked. The news that Dan’s Chelsea Guitar, an icon of Chelsea might be closing up shop and moving by the end of summer had barely been digested, and then this. Where is the neighborhood going?
“Whoever came up with this idea?” asked Danny, the owner of Dan’s Chelsea Guitar. “Do they think Europeans fly here all the way from Europe to see shopping malls! What are they going to do? Buy a Jamba!” He continued in his scorn against the commercializing of the community. Chelsea is fast losing all its originality and with the asking prices for rent, only high-end merchandise stores might be moving in.