Easily as far back as this blog has been running (12 years, as of this past July), and invariably for some years prior to that, whenever a once-cherished neighborhood institution, long-running bar and/or lovingly curated mom’n’pop shop was excised from the streetscape over unreasonably spiralling rents, the popular refrain from change-wary and gentrification-weary local residents was “it’ll probably become a bank, a Starbucks or a CVS.” In those instances when something other than one of those three depressing options sprouted up in the footprint of the former local favorite, the inevitable rejoinder was then akin to “hey, at least it’s not a bank, a Starbucks or a CVS!”
It was a common utterance because it had becme so true. In 2017, there indeed are too many bank branches. There are WAY too many fucking Starbucks. There are too many CVS’s. I don’t mean to single out CVS, here… ther are also way too many Duane Reades and too many goddamn Wallgreens, but you doubtlessly get my point. In much the same way we don’t need another TD Bank outlet or another place to pay handsomely for some inarguably burnt-tasting coffee, we don’t need another location for a pharmaceutical chain. Feel free to click your tonuges and write me off as another hopeless NYC nostalgist, but you know damn well I’m not wrong on this point.
More recently, however, I’ve noticed another option that has joined the legions of banks, drug-store chains and Starbucks outlets as unwieldy limbs of the tireless hydra of homogenization that is gradually devouring New York City, and their proliferation is almost overtaking their afore-mentioned predecessors.
Put simply, we really, really don’t need any more Soul Cycle studios, Barry’s Boot Camps or any further nouvelle boxing gyms.
I don’t mean to knock anyone’s attempts to get healthy and better themselves, but if you’re so fucking dead-set on fucking fitness, why not walk the extra couple of blocks to an already existing one of these temples of perspiration?
WE DON’T NEED ANY MORE NEW ONES! ENOUGH ALREADY.
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