Posted on 02/24/2015 4:30:08 PM PST by E. Pluribus Unum
An old-school supermarket that will soon close in Clinton Hill needs to be replaced with a similar joint, and not some fancy-schmancy shop for white gentrifiers, a state legislator proclaimed this week.
The Key Food on Lafayette Avenue between Saint James Place and Classon Avenue is set to close within the next two months in order to make way for an eight-story residential building. The landlord said he will try to bring a supermarket back once the project is finished, and state Sen. Velmanette Montgomery (D–Clinton Hill) demanded he make sure he finds an operator that will continue serving neighbors of color, who she claimed have different grocery needs than whites.
“Supermarkets are an important part of the community. It’s an important amenity, especially for black and brown communities,” she said. “When you’re talking about a white community, it can be a little boutique, because white people don’t eat the way we do.”
Montgomery did not offer further information on what she thinks the white diet consists of, and her provocative remark went un-commented on at a heated town-hall meeting in the Ryerson Towers, a Mitchell Lama co-op complex, convened to update neighbors about the store’s closing and its pending redevelopment. Others in the predominately African-American crowd of about 100 saw the loss of the supermarket in racial terms, blaming it on gentrification and saying it is cutting off a lifeline for seniors who, because of their race, developers don’t care about.
“If our skin were any other color, this would not be happening,” Roseanne Lynn said.
Clinton Hill was 51 percent African-American and 41 percent white as of the 2010 Census, a marked shift from 2000, when the figures were 72 percent and 19 percent, respectively. The average rent for a two-bedroom has hovered around $3,000 since the fall of 2013, but the cost of new development in the neighborhood has more than doubled since the end of 2011, according to MNS real estate.
Richard Grobman, who owns the property, told the assembled residents that he hoped to have a supermarket open in the ground floor of the completed development. But he also said he could not guarantee that it would happen.
“We certainly appreciate that a supermarket is important to the neighborhood here. And we are endeavoring to have a supermarket here in the final development,” he said. “We’re not obligated to, but we’re certainly trying. I can’t guarantee it though.”
It is in his interest to give the people what they want, he said.
“I hope that I’m smart enough to choose an operator that can provide the community what it needs,” he said. “Because if I don’t, I’m going to have a big vacant store.”
Ryerson Towers residents said that other grocery stores, including a C-Town two blocks away on Taaffe Place, are too far for seniors to get to.
“Closing that store is just crazy,” said Dennis Williams, who goes shopping at Key Food with his elderly mother. “You haven’t taken us or the seniors into consideration at all.”
Public Advocate Letitia James, who lives nearby and patronizes the Key Food, said the distance to the other grocery stores is too much for oldsters.
“I can walk to Myrtle or Dekalb, but the vast majority of these residents cannot,” she said.
Grobman’s family has owned the property for 50 years and used to operate a grocery store at the site called Dan’s Supreme, a chain of supermarkets his family still owns. He is set to retain partial ownership of the property after its development through a joint agreement with Slate Property Group.
The building is supposed to include 110 rental apartments, underground parking, and ground floor retail, according David Schwartz, a principal of Slate.
He said the group will pursue a tax abatement that would set aside a fifth of the units as below-market rate. A small doctor’s office is also planned in the space.
The retail portion is planned to be built in a way conducive to attracting a supermarket, even though building it differently would be more lucrative, Schwartz said.
“We could make a lot more money by dividing it up into smaller stores,” Schwartz said. “But we listened to the community express a demand for a supermarket.”
At the town hall, residents were also angry over the short notice for the store’s shuttering, and asked the pols present why they did not know sooner. The site’s zoning allows for the project to be built without special permission, and does not require public hearings or political input to move forward.
James said she heard about the closing the way everybody did — while shopping for cereal.
Councilwoman Laurie Cumbo (D–Clinton Hill) said the process is broken.
“I’m baffled that you don’t know more about what this project entails,” she said. “We’re working everyday in the Council to transform the legislation that makes a development like this possible.”
James had a different take.
“He owns private property, and he’s saying, ‘I’m going to do whatever I want with it,’ ” she said. “We don’t live in a communist country. This is capitalism.”
Actually spinach is a food with one of the highest level of oxalic acid. It is a problem because it binds with calcium and interferes with absorption. It's also implicated in kidney stones. Cooking may reduce the level somewhat.
Also, the iron in spinach is a nonheme iron so spinach is not a good source of *usable* iron. Other foods, e.g., oysters, chicken livers, will give you better iron that your body can use. Not spinach.
“You realize, don’t you, that you will not find a person of any color south of the Mason Dixon who calls them ‘chitterlings’.”
Who pissed your Wheaties this morning?
Just how we used to eat them. Plant them thick and then eat the small ones as we thinned them.
“Brian Williams was there. He swears the story is true.”
I thought he was discovering the head waters of the Nile that year.
One of the few thing I eat that I think is good for me and I like and you have to go and muck it all up! Please don’t tell me Brussels sprouts are poisonous.
Oh darn. I'm so sorry! I thought I was doing good. sigh
It sounds like you want to keep your iron level high? It turns out not all iron is the same in foods. If you want iron that will help you avoid anemia then you want animal based food., e.g., liver, oysters, because you will get more usable iron than from plant based iron.
But you can eat all the spinach you want as long as you don't have kidney stones or osteoporosis.
Brussel sprouts are great. I love them. Just don't overdose on them if you are on blood thinners. Otherwise they are very healthy.
Everything in moderation is the best bet. I'm addicted to peas. (some call them English peas) I can't eat them in moderation.
I promise to use Lane peaches and make enough for us both
;)
Lane peaches????? What do you know about Lane peaches?????? Do I know you in person???????? You are certainly down there. I’m racking my brain now. You know, my brain doesn’t work like it used to, not with this crappy chemo. Tell me. LOL
I surely don’t know you, but you know that I would know about Lane’s.
ack!! I have to know!!!! ;D
I noted that you are a Georgia freeper and hence I KNEW that you and I were peach perfectionist. I admit that I popped a quart just last night to brighten my snow filled evening
Oh, you had me. I even called my best friend Freeper and was asking “does Nifster live in GA???!!!”
I used to live about 5 or 6 miles from Lane Packing. And whoo boy, do i love peaches.
Cobbler. (swoon) fresh, any old way. I limit my intake, but I enjoy every bite. I close my eyes, I make sure that the only sense I’m feeling is the sense of taste.
For a while, I thought maybe I knew you, you lived down there and we knew each other. Is you a he, or is you a she?? hahahaha.
I tried chitlins once before I knew what was in them, I ate no more than a tiny bite.
I immediately realized that this was not something that should ever be eaten.
Well you see the truth is a mushy middle....spinach in the presence of other foods seems to inhibit what the oxalic acid does and allows the absorption of more of spinach’s iron. I always heard spinach alone is not so good, but spinach with other foods allows its full benefits to be released to the body. Other types of “soul food greens”...not so much!
You’re so right. Foods and what gets absorbed or doesn’t get absorbed, it’s not easy to summarize it all in a simple way. Everything in moderation seems to be the best - except for some health issues that call for food restrictions.
Also, there are a lot of food-drug interactions that somehow have not been publicized widely, e.g., warfarin and cranberry juice, grapefruit juice and a number of meds including statins. It’s a jungle out there!
I actually do live in Georgia these days. Didn’t for a long time. Have family ties here that were calling me home.
My daughter taught me about Lane’s (as she would send me those heavenly quarts to keep me happy until I got here to taste the freshest of the fresh). I have only been living in Georgia for two years but the family roots go back centuries. We leave in the northern part of the state (the north woods as I like to refer to it).
While we we are kindred souls are paths have only met here at FR.
I are a she ;) Please don’t hold that against me
No, that makes me happy, to have a new GA friend. I moved up here from Houston Co last year, to a town down here near Senoia, (where The Walking Dead is filmed)
If you ever get down this far, write me and we can meet for coffee! (i don’t actually drink coffee, but you know, a coke)
We love the Walking Dead. It is must see for daughter and son-in-law. I am so loving living in Georgia but every now and again the dumb government folks try and act like California and that I hate.
We live just south of the Pickens County line (near Lake Arrowhead)... If you have ever been to Davis BBQ or Williams Brothers at exit 16 off the 575 then you are getting closer. Senoia is a great little town.
Glad to have a new Georgia friend myself.
Roger that. I end up in that part of the world now and again.
One day, i am going to Senoia and seeing Darryl!! (and hopefully, everyone else)
Hope they stay there until I get well enough to go
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