Yesterday, I
walked downstairs from my apartment to discover that Mexican Radio, a
restaurant next door to my apartment building whose customer I’d been since
they’d opened in that location, had closed. This was the latest in a string of
small business closures in my neighborhood over the last few years that
included a newsstand, a laundromat, two delis and Spring Street Natural
restaurant, which had been in its old location for over 30 years.
I wrote an email
to Lori Selden, the owner of Mexican Radio, expressing my sadness at their
closing, and the owner wrote back with a short history of her experience in the
neighborhood, which I found absolutely fascinating. With Ms. Selden’s
permission, I thought I’d share some excerpts from our email exchange here.
Good evening,
Paul, and thank you for your sweet note.
It has been very
sad and painful for us to shut the NYC doors after 21 years, 17+ at the
Cleveland Place location.
We struggled for
quite some time with excruciatingly high rent and overheads, not to mention just
the onerous day-to-day routines that NYC requires. As a long-time
resident of the neighborhood, you know all too well what we’ve been witnessing
the last couple of decades and, most recently, the last five years or so. It
happened to SoHo, it’s happening to the entire city—there’s just no way that
small independent businesses can survive anymore.
What a different
planet it was back then!
I think some our
proudest (and saddest) memories are tied up in the fateful day when we all
stood outside on Cleveland Place and watched The Towers fall. As you well
know, our guys were all First Responders, many of whom we lost that day.
The neighborhood was shut down with a Checkpoint Charlie on Houston (we
would have to walk up there continually to vouch for our staff to come down
into the restricted zone) and we felt honored to be able to provide a solid
month of food, drink and the comfort of community to those of us living and
working where the ashes fell.
When the cleanup
was mostly over and the fire station received the gift of that sweet little
Dalmatian, it brought a giant smile back into our lives as we all began to
regroup and try to move forward.
We are both very
grateful to have been in the right place at the right time.
I also asked
Selden about 236 Lafayette Street, a building on the northwest corner of Lafayette
and Spring Streets that had seemed mysteriously empty for years and which I was
surprised some developer hadn’t bought and turned into luxury condos. She
talked about that, as well.
Sam Salstein was
the owner of 236 Lafayette until he passed away, and then I believe the family
sold it to a developer of some sort. Sam and the guy who used to own the
bank building (now Duane Reade) owned a lot of downtown real estate. In
fact, the former owner of the bank building (Saul?) inherited it from his
father, who bought it for like $20k in the ’40s! We had an office in that
building for a short period of time back in the day.
236 was four
“mini lofts,” super funky, with bathrooms in the hallway except for ours, which
had been slightly improved upon at some point, so our bathroom was in the
apartment. Thank goodness, as those hallways were FREEZING! At one point
it had clearly been an industrial building and, as per usual, Sam put zero $$
into maintaining it, so funky it most certainly remained.
The windows
facing Spring (now with the continual screen ad banners hanging) were the
bedrooms and on the Lafayette side were the living room/kitchen areas above what
we used to call La Cucaracha, the greasy spoon Dominican place where they
played dominoes and blasted car radios all summer. Chris and Nora, who
lived in the first apartment, always went crazy because the guys banged those
dominoes so loudly that Nora eventually made them a felt pad to muffle the noise. It actually did help a bit! The best thing about the apartments
were they got a lot of light. The worst thing was living above the 6
trains, especially when they power washed the stairs every morning around 4am
right outside all our bedroom windows! We lived there for about 10
years…lotsa stories, as I’m sure you have as well.
Mexican Radio continues to operate two restaurants in Hudson and Schenectady, New York. For more information, go to www.mexrad.com.
For more posts on
this blog about other New York businesses that have closed in the last few years,
see also:
2016: The Year in Death (http://thegaycurmudgeon.blogspot.com/2016/12/2016-year-in-death.html)
Last Shower at
Splash (http://thegaycurmudgeon.blogspot.com/2013/07/the-last-shower-at-splash.html)
Last Night at the Rawhide (http://thegaycurmudgeon.blogspot.com/2013/03/last-night-at-rawhide_30.html)
The Last Days of
Bleecker Bob’s (http://thegaycurmudgeon.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-last-days-of-bleecker-bobs.html)
On the Death of Cities, Part 2 (http://thegaycurmudgeon.blogspot.com/2013/01/on-death-of-cities-part-2.html)
On the Death of Cities (http://thegaycurmudgeon.blogspot.com/2012/12/on-death-of-cities.html)
