Roslindale in recession
By adamg - Fri, 04/25/2008 - 8:14am.
Interesting story and video on the impact of the national economy on the businesses of Roslindale Square (the Globe does know where Boston neighborhoods are!). I didn't know how many people had been laid off or that Bob's Pita Bakery no longer makes its own pita.
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Brick sidewalks
Well, there's brick sidewalk on the square in front of Threads and Joanne Rossman, which have Birch St. addresses. Admittedly, the brick ends at Birch Street Bistro, which is the first Birch St. address with a storefront actually on the street itself. Given that the outdoor eating area that the bistro, Sophia's Grotto, and Village Sushi share is brick, I think the spirit of the article was correct.
Praise where praise is due
We kick the Globe so often (for good and sufficient reasons), it only seems fair to offer some applause when they do something right. A good article. They ought to do more of this sort of thing.
Sad to hear about the demise of the pita bakery.
You're right
I've taken the nitpicking out of the main post and put them here, because it really was a good article:
but one nitpick deserves more attention
I'd suggest calling or e-mailing the Globe reporter and asking her to follow up the story of Jax and their illegal close-down sale.
Liquidation!
Jax "going out of business" hardly seems like an indicator of economic trouble. It seems like they've been going out of business for four years. Maybe they should just change the name of the store to Liquidation!
Another semi-nit, or maybe just a contention
One could make the case that the Square collapsed in the 1970s not because of white flight but because of the opening of the Dedham Mall.
Agreed
Agreed Ron. Although I thought it was a well done article, putting the image of Jax as the face of Roslindale Sq. is misleading. They have been "liquidating" forever and its clearly just a gimmick. I also kind of wish that they had intermingled a bit more of the good with the bad up front in describing Roslindale Sq. From the first page of the article on Boston.com you would think things were terrible in the Sq. but from the second page its all roses. They also failed to mention the new businesses that are opening in the Sq. including the huge new Staples, which is replacing a long-blighted abandoned building and the Square Corner Cafe, which will hopeful give us some more coffee competition. Nuvo has also re-opened albeit under new (and I hear not as good) management. The BRA is also putting out an RFP to redevelop the long abandoned MBTA substation at the corner of Washington St. and Cummins Highway into a commercial or mixed use project (community meeting for comments April 30th at the community center).
Way over the top
As a resident in Roslindale, this article seemed a bit heavy on the doom and gloom. Sure it's a tough time for a small local business, but I think the glory days of the local retail store are over. I'd rather have a bunch of thriving restaurants keeping the downtown area busy at night than stores open in the day. I suspect the employment lost by a bakery are offset by people working at the newer restaurants. As far as home foreclosures go, the Globe ran an article a month or so ago showing home prices holding value in JP and Roslindale much better than in the suburbs and given the price of gas and commuting, I think that will hold. There are probably as many foreclosures in Newton as Roslindale.
Doom and gloom?
I dunno, my take-away from the article was not that the '70s are back for Roslindale Square but that even the Square is being affected by the national economy. I bet the article could have just as easily been written about Centre Street in JP or Newton Centre.
"I'd rather have a bunch of
"I'd rather have a bunch of thriving restaurants keeping the downtown area busy at night than stores open in the day."
I think this about sums it up - when the gentrification of a neighborhood gets to this point, it's probably time to skedaddle. For those of us who actually inhabit Roslindale during the week and in the daylight, this sentiment is pretty revolting. We're moving our bookstore from Roslindale to West Roxbury next month for a variety of reasons, but this cavalier attitude towards local shops is certainly on the list, so on behalf of small local retail stores the world over, I'll leave you with a hearty go to hell.
Contradictory
Roslindale is getting too gentrified, so you're going to West Roxbury? That hardly makes sense as a motive; perhaps many of the people who have moved into Roslindale in the past decade are bringing the average income up, but West Roxbury is a more solidly bourgeois community than Roslindale.
It's apparent you have some resentment against people who you suspect are wealthier than you, but your bookstore isn't losing money because of gentrification in Roslindale - your customers having more money isn't going to drive you broke. It's because you are in a crappy location. You're not really moving because of your disgust at all those other folks who live here; you're moving because the other location gets more foot traffic. I walk by that location more often than I walk by Pazzo (although Pazzo remains my favorite bookstore).
Also, most of the time I am close to Pazzo it's because I'm at Goeffrey's, and half the time I try to go to Pazzo it's closed, because you keep banker's hours. That's a pretty poor strategy to capture the trade of the person who is mostly in Roslindale nights and weekends - which is to say most people who live in Roslindale. It's bizarre that you should be shocked at the attitude of the poster, who is just following a tradition going back to the foundation of Roslindale as a suburb of Boston. That Roslindale should continue to be something of a bedroom community shouldn't shock you as much as it seems to. Few people are going to pay a half-million dollars for a house out of a salary earned in Roslindale. Sure that's more than it was a decade ago, but all these nice houses were built near the commuter rail line for a reason - the first people who lived in them commuted too.
Whoa
I'll answer a couple of these - you must count yourself in the gentry to get so upset, but here goes.
I have no particular animus against people who make more money than me - we own a bookstore for the lifestyle (and the babes), so it would be batty to have some grudge against people who have real jobs.
We're open 6 days a week - 11-7 weekdays - I guess you can read that however you want.
We're not moving because Roslindale got gentrified - it was gentrified when we opened - we're moving, in large part, because West Roxbury is less expensive and has a wider array of open spaces. Restaurants are great for a certain slice of humanity, but they also tend to drive up rents. Obviously I was feigning shock at the poster, but it gets pretty tiring hearing how antiquated retail stores are and how fantastic restaurants are for a community.
Like I said though, we're moving for a variety of reasons - I never said gentrification was one of them, I said a cavalier attitude towards local shops was one of them - I'm hardly disgusted by people in Roslindale, I own a house here, met some great people here, and love it here. I also would trade Bob's making pitas again for any two restaurants, but that's another story. I think you're making my post - where I took some shots at a point of view that I take umbrage with - a lot more general than it was. Also, we're not "losing money" - good lord, how long do used bookstores stay in business that lose money? Our location did turn out to be crappy though - I'll give you that one.
Hmmm
"I never said gentrification was one of them"
Okay, I sort of did, but I was speaking of a specific sort of blase gentrification. I should note that we tried for years to find the right spot in Roslindale but for a variety of landlord and other reasons, it never worked out. No hard feelings though, you definitely pointed out some faults in my "righteous" indignation. You should come to our going away party Sat. May 3 starting at 5 - we're auctioning off the skee-ball table.
Anything but blase
I would love to hear your description of "a specific sort of blase gentrification." I'm sure you can split a hair four ways!
No hard feelings all around. I thought the rhetoric ramped up to "go to hell" pretty quick, but I know tone of voice doesn't carry well online, and I'm sure you said it in a friendly way.
I have long considered Pazzo the finest used bookstore in Boston, and though I'm sad you're leaving Rossie, I'm glad you're not going far.
Noooooooo!
Can't you just move in where JAX is when it goes out of business? ; ) But seriously, is there any chance that the landlord for JAX would just let you have the space and do the entire Square a favor?
Confused by comments above
I just read the story in print, and again online, and I don't see the word "Jax" or "Liquidator" anywhere in the story. So what prompted that discussion?
The online video
It's in the first shot of the online video.
Recession as seen from a $45K luxury car!
Okay, I bit. Hit the video, and was greeted
by a commercial for a Porsche Cayman, MSRP
between $49K and $59K...
Is it just me, or does the lead-in commercial
and the video subject seem just a wee
bit incongruous?
Because of the recession
Large numbers of people in Roslindale have been forced to give up their Porsches.
Yeah, it's incongruous, unless, of course, you think the sales department figures rich Porsche-driving Natick Mall residents enjoy seeing how the little people are doing these days.
Paging Sarah Schweitzer...
I can see it now...
"Roslindale Residents Join Citywide Trend,
Trading in their Porsches"
Rocked by tough economic times, many Roslindale
residents have been forced to make tough choices.
Adam Gaffin, a long time resident, explains:
"I'm willing to part with the Porsche, reluctantly,
if it means I can continue providing my family
with garlic scapes and artisan cheeses."
How bad is it?
We're being forced to go into Stony Brook Reservation so the young'un can snout around for fiddleheads while the wife and I go after some free-range venison and squab.
I recommend
The wild turkey with garlic scapes.
I just saw one looking a little lost in Putterham Circle (as in, in - he was on the island in the middle of the rotary). He's probably still there. You could bag him on your way home.
Seriously...
People are using the library, buying second hand goods from a worthwhile charity, taking the bus instead of driving, going to museums and heaven forbid cooking at home? I'm sorry to hear about the Pita bakers but I visit Bobs often and its always busy, that store is not hurting for customers. I don't think anyone will miss Open Door Realty's storefront, what no more looking at poorly written descriptions of out of town condos, there goes the square! I'm delighted to here Tony is selling more meat, thats not a bad thing in my book.
Its like they had the story written and went looking for a few place names and long faces in Roslindale. They could have written a story about how the Village is on the upswing with new restaurants, a fully refurbished community center and a new Staples going up. In fact the Globe did write such a story in their chick mag Lola this month, right there on the cover it says "Roslindale Rocks"
http://www.lolaboston.com/index.php
Lola in Roslindale? Aha! There's our problem!
Cool that Lola covered Roslindale. NOT cool that Roslindale is the only neighborhood where Lola is not distributed. 18 distribution points in JP, 8 in Hyde Park even. Allston, Eastie, Brighton, Roxbury, Dot - everyone's got it. There's not a single box in Roz. Maybe that's our problem? http://www.lolaboston.com/locations.php
I feel personally responsible
Since I moved out of Rozzie (and then out of JP) a few years back, I stopped going to Bob's Pita Bakery (a.k.a. Droubi Bros. Bakery) simply because it was out of my way. I feel as though I must have been single-handedly keeping them in business, given how much pita I snarfed back in the day, and now it's clear that my moving away has practically put him out of business. Aside from the fact that this bodes poorly for the neighborhood and the bakery owner, I am crushed to think that I can't just drop in there any old day and get some pita with condensation inside the bag 'cause it was just packaged hot from the oven. Must I now go to Rhode Island or, heaven forfend, to CANADA to get my fresh-baked pita fix? This is a complete and total scandal, and I apologize to you all for my part in it.
They were looking for doom and gloom
Myself and a few other store owners in Roslindale, were interviewed a few weeks ago for this story. The question was, "How has the economy affected you and your business?" Seems our positive outlook and the ability to hold strong in the changing times wasn't what they were looking for. They were looking for doom and gloom and they found it... Maybe sometime in the (hopeful) near future, The Boston Globe will send someone out to interview and write about Roslindales favorites, the old and the new, within Mainstreets and without, in a positive manner.
We all know these are hard times,.. everywhere,.. not just in Roslindale.
We are a proud, beautiful community, that somehow, once again slipped under the radar. Even though we made it on the front page of the Globe
I think the article WAS balanced -- on average
It is just that the doom and gloom came earlier in the article -- and the more positive picture was towards the bottom -- which not every reader gets to. ;~{
There are some purchases that our family would NEVER make _outside_ Roslindale Square (even if we could find things a bit cheaper elsewhere).
Model for Crap Journalism
1: Reach Conclusions.
2. Gather Anecdotes to Support Conclusions.
I'd say it's an index of Roslindale's economic health that they couldn't actually find any negative economic effects of the recession.
- Jax is not "liquidating" because of recession. That's just what they do.
- Bob's hasn't stopped baking pitas because of recession. It's because gas is through the roof and it's cheaper to just buy the pitas.
-Boschetto isn't raising cookie prices because of recession. It's because flour is up.
-B. Davis didn't lose her job because of a recession. It's an unintended consequence of the health insurance law.
-Pazzo isn't moving because of the recession. It's because they found a better site to keep the same bookstore open.
But does all this evidence to the contrary make the so-called journalist change his conclusions? Nah. He'd have to change his headline with all that clever alliteration.
Another person who found the article odd
Seth Gitell rants:
Also, he delivers the news that Brian McGrory grew up in Roslindale. Ew. I feel like I need a shower now.