Head for the hills! Eden Fine Art, at Broome and Greene Sts., is closed but was open on an appointment basis only, at least recently. Uncle Rich Pennybags, the Monopoly mascot, fleeing with a sack of cash seems an apt image for all the Soho designer boutiques that have shuttered and cleared their shelves amid the pandemic. (Photo by Soho Anonymous)
Soho boutiques are freaked: Shutter shops, clear shelves
March 20, 2020
Thursday night in Soho, the only noise along Broadway was the buzz of power saws and the pounding of hammers as a big plywood wall was slapped up across the entire storefront of Sephora, the beauty-products store near Prince St.
Amid the COVID-19 outbreak, luxury stores in Soho have shuttered and their shelves are bare — cleared of pricey goods, doubtless out of fear of looting.
A neighborhood resident, who requested anonymity, sent The Village Sun photos taken along tony Greene St. and other nearby locations, showing the slew of abandoned designer boutiques.
“Seems the priciest brands are fearful of marauding hordes looking to ‘fashion-up’ in this time of crisis,” he said. “They’ve barricaded their storefronts and / or cleared out the goods — and basically showed their true colors by running scared and abandoning the neighborhood. Not to worry, we live here and are keeping watch — and we’ll remember this when things turn around.
“I’m just a local longtimer staying put and staying safe,” he said, “unlike some of these global brands that have scurried out of Soho with their purses between their legs.”
Its depressing enough without boarded up store fronts
Alex Alexander
March 22, 2020
Looks like Acapolypse.
SoHo 99%er
March 20, 2020
SoHo residents have long claimed that these high-end stores are like strip miners.
That is, they come into a nice community, take it over, bleed it for all it’s worth and then, as soon as there is an economic downturn, they hightail it out of town with their profits, leaving a scarred wasteland in their aftermath for the locals to live with.
Its depressing enough without boarded up store fronts
Looks like Acapolypse.
SoHo residents have long claimed that these high-end stores are like strip miners.
That is, they come into a nice community, take it over, bleed it for all it’s worth and then, as soon as there is an economic downturn, they hightail it out of town with their profits, leaving a scarred wasteland in their aftermath for the locals to live with.