Editorial comment: Local retail's clouded future

They say every cloud has a silver lining. Last week, another retailer on Riverdale Avenue, the Fieldston Supermarket, cleared out its shelves and locked its doors, darkening the cloud that had already formed around the future of the Central Riverdale business district.

Not so long ago, the strip of stores along the east side of Riverdale Avenue from West 236th to West 238th streets was bustling with an ice cream shop, a driving school, a Japanese restaurant, a beloved bookstore, a women’s clothing store and more. Now shuttered storefronts on the block are all too visible, putting stress on the businesses that remain on both sides of the street

. The silver lining is the opportunity the vacancies create to re-imagine the retail mix that could best serve the community. And an ad hoc group of Riverdalians — ranging from unaffiliated citizens like Kathy Goldstein, in whose home the group’s first meeting was held, to community board leaders — has begun to do just that.

The worthy effort grew from an online discussion on a Yahoo! chat group, which focuses on issues confronting local families. It should spread to include as many Riverdalians in the conversation as possible.

Though most of the participants had no experience with city planning they had no trouble zeroing in on some of the impediments that have hampered local businesses for years — lack of parking, indifferent commercial landlords and merchants who would rather go it alone that work together for common goals. Nevertheless, they quickly filled sheets of paper lining the walls of Ms. Goldstein’s living room with a wish list of stores they’d love to see, including a health food purveyor, an organic bake shop, play space for children and a supermarket “like Fairway or Broadway’s Garden Gourmet.”

We’d like to add an old-fashioned appetizing store — as recently as the early 1990s there were two expert lox cutters competing on Johnson Avenue — a replacement for Paperbacks Plus and a men’s clothing store to the mix.

Even the Skyview shopping center, with its block-long parking lot, is often choked with traffic and Robert Fanuzzi, chairman of Community Board 8’s economic development committee, envisions a shoppers’ trolley, like the Bronx Culture Trolley, to ease the burden by linking the community’s shopping areas.

Perhaps the Rail Link buses that ferry commuters to and from Metro-North stations could be enlisted during their downtime to provide local jitney service.

Mr. Fanuzzi emphasized that an active merchants’ association is necessary to push for, and administer, such services. The record for such organizations has been spotty at best. The Kingsbridge Riverdale Chamber of Commerce is long gone, and truth be told, it never set its sights further than the Broadway/ 231st Street area. Gone, too, is CRABA, the Central Riverdale Area Business Association, founded by bookstore owner Fern Jaffe, and the shortlived Johnson Avenue Merchants Association.

Too often, apathetic shopkeepers simply ignored opportunities to organize or their meetings devolved into petty bickering. A merchants’ organization can only succeed with vigorous progressive leadership — the kind that could be provided by Mr. Fanuzzi, realtors like Brad Trebach or Susan Goldy or The Press’ own marketing director, Phyllis Steele, to name just a few.

Government has a role to play, as well. The Kingsbridge-Riverdale-Van Cortlandt Development Corporation, a quasi-governmental agency which has done a great deal for Kingsbridge, should consider how it might help upthe- hill businesses. At the meeting, attendees wondered aloud how to harness the power of the Bronx Overall Development Corp. and made innovative suggestions about using new businesses in Riverdale to provide jobs for residents of struggling neighborhoods elsewhere in the borough.

The Goldstein group is solidifying into a kind of steering committee and plans another meeting for next month and a presentation at the community board’s Feb. 26 meeting, so now is the time to prepare your own wish list and join the discussion.

Tony Cassino, chair of Board 8’s traffic and transporaton committee who attended the meeting, lamented the description of the community he says he has heard far too often, “River-dull.” An infusion of imagination and effort could change that to “River-delightful.”

An ad hoc committee has begun envisioning the future for Riverdale’s shops and shoppers.

This is part of the January 22, 2009 online edition of The Riverdale Press.

Have an opinion on this matter? We'd like to hear from you. Click here.