Break the chain.
According to a recent Myrtle Minutes blast, Walgreens is opening in the neighborhood — welcome news to some, it seems. We’re mostly well-sorted for pharmacies ’round here, to the point that we may even be getting an Elephant Pharm-style spot soon, so I’m less than enthusiastic anyway, but beyond that, I just can’t get excited when a major chain opens in Brooklyn.
Let me clarify: Though I champion the well-done independents, I’m not opposed to chain stores across the board. Boots the Chemists, Borders Books, Buy Buy Baby, Trader Joe’s — love. They get it right. Would spasm with joy to have one of each in spitting distance. But what is it about a Brooklyn address that prompts some chains to bring their Z-game? The facilities look run down as soon as they open (I’m looking at you, Applebee’s and Target), the customer service is indifferent to lousy (Target again), and worst of all — since this is supposedly the chain’s biggest advantage — they’re poorly stocked (Barnes & Noble, Target for the win!). I can think of one exception: Hale & Hearty Soups in Brooklyn Heights, which has borderline friendly employees (if they recognize you after you’ve been there a couple of times) and is always neat. But otherwise, the contrast between a Home Depot in Bed-Stuy and a Home Depot in Orlando (or lower Manhattan, even) is so striking — clean(ish) surfaces! stock staff who know where stuff is! cashiers that actually acknowledge your existence with a hello! — that they don’t even seem to be the same corporation.
Let’s state one obvious factor at play here: Chain stores have avoided predominantly black neighborhoods, and those that do finally come around often offer goods that are not of the same quality or quantity as in other locations. Grocery store chains are one of the most discussed offenders, but it applies to all kinds of services (otherwise, Magic Johnson wouldn’t have stepped in so successfully in Harlem and Los Angeles). Walgreens itself is at the center of an EEOC lawsuit now, in part for allegedly referring to certain branches as “ethnic stores” and treating them as substandard stands for stymieing black employees and managers. If the first front in the battle was to bring some of these stores to places like Clinton Hill in the first place, then the next step seems to be pressing them to bring their facilities and services up to the standards they’ve set elsewhere. And maybe, just maybe, the mom-and-pops will also step it up to keep their formerly captive customer base from deserting them. It would be nice to see that fabled New York competitiveness help all boats to rise.
September 8th, 2007 at 2:35 am
go ‘git ‘em, momsis.