It seems there’s been a big push from chains in the past few months—and a big push back from people.
Looking just at recent developments in the East Village and Lower East Side: After a controversial 7-11 appeared on St. Mark’s Place, the windows were smashed by anarchists, and New York magazine reported on 7-11’s plans to put our local bodegas out of business. When Starbucks crept too far east, taking the former spot of Little Rickie, disgruntled locals pasted up anti-Starbucks posters and later egged the windows. As for Subway sandwich outposts, they’re proliferating like bedbugs in summertime.
On Grand Street, neighbors are petitioning to keep 7-11 and Dunkin Donuts out, and there’s a petition to stop more chains from moving into the East Village, which ranked third on the list of most-chained neighborhoods in New York City on the Center for an Urban Future’s massive report on the state of chains in New York City. The Upper West Side is also fighting back, advocating for new zoning to put a stop to chains.
(via Jeremiah’s Vanishing New York: Chain Stores in the City)
