It was only 20 years ago that pushcart vendors paraded along the busy blocks of Belmont Avenue, a four-block commercial strip in Brownsville. Now nearly half of the avenue’s storefronts are listed for sale and not a single eating establishment remains.
The landscape of Belmont swiftly changed in the 1990’s when street vendors and business owners moved out. What was once a neighborhood hub became a stretch of empty storefronts riddled with crime. Most recently, shopkeepers have struggled to stay afloat with high building taxes and fewer customers during the recession.
But now community leaders are stepping in to save the street.
“Belmont has a rich history, but that doesn’t mean that new histories can’t be made,” said Joe Blankenship, a Pratt Institute graduate student in city planning who is assisting Community Board 16 in uniting merchants, improving the appearance of the avenue and trying to attract back shoppers.
The task won’t be an easy one. At this stage Belmont activists are only just beginning to organize their efforts.
The Board’s Economic Development Committee is now holding meetings with Blankenship and Belmont merchants to assess the avenue’s issues and form a merchants association.
“We’re trying to get the businesses to reorganize themselves into a merchant’s association,” she said. “We’ve also been talking with city administration because for a while there most of the street lights were not working.”
Blankenship started working on the project only a couple of weeks ago, but he hopes the association will pool together shopkeepers’ business knowledge and give them a louder voice within the community, he said.
“A community that has a merchant’s association that is active on the street can help new businesses also,” he said. “If you’re a start up business in the area and you have a set of merchants to go to, it’s a more conducive atmosphere for better communication.”
Brownsville’s Community Board is also working with city officials and the 73rd Precinct to stem the area’s frequent robberies and encourage economic growth. The city recently improved Belmont’s lighting, though most businesses still close before nightfall. The Board has made smaller efforts to encourage shoppers, including installing parking meters for easily accessible parking. But shoppers often complained of the high meter prices — 15 minutes for a quarter —Joey Mizrahi, a buyer for Happy Days, said.
For some storeowners the efforts are too little too late. Mizrahi has worked at the Happy Days clothing store for over a decade. The store itself has been on Belmont for over 40 years. With high zoning taxes and few customers, Happy Days’ business has been steadily declining by 20 to 30 percent annually. Robberies are not infrequent either — only last week two teens stole boxes of apparel left unattended by the front door. Happy Days will close in the near future, Mizrahi said.
“No one is willing to come here,” he said. “It doesn’t even pay to open the store sometimes.”
Happy Days’ story is a common one on the block, even for businesses that lasted generations. M. Slavin and Sons auctioned off their 7,500-square-foot fish market in June after filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy last February. The odor of fish still lingers outside the empty property where the family-owned business stood for 90 years.
Nearby businesses are also affected by the market’s bankruptcy. Greene-Walker called the fish market an “anchor” in the community. Slavin shoppers no longer frequent other stores after stopping by the market, said Michael Winston, an employee at a shoe shop across the street from the market.
Now Brownsville residents who patronized Slavin avoid the block, in part because of high crime on the street. More people prefer to shop on nearby Pitkin Avenue, where police patrol heavily, Idalia Torres, a longtime resident at Seth Lo Houses, said.
“This used to be a place where you could walk at all times of night,” she said. “Now you don’t know who’s around and it’s not easy to be afraid all the time.”
While the community board has been working with local police, several storeowners are dissatisfied with the results. Mizrahi said he “doesn’t see light at the end of the tunnel.”
“Every time we complained we’d have police presence for only one week,” Mizrahi said. “It was a game and after awhile we just gave up.”
In the early 60s and 70s, Belmont was an active part of the community— residents would buy fresh fruits and vegetables from Jewish vendors and few storefronts were unoccupied. Over the years, the area’s demographics changed, Greene-Walker said, and many business owners moved out.
“It just seems as though one store after the other started closing,” she said.
Blankenship is currently creating an inventory about the retail options that remain on Belmont and possible new business ventures, he said. His role will include facilitating conversations with community retailers and creating an aesthetically pleasing atmosphere for shoppers.
“The area doesn’t need to live in the past, it can find a way to rejuvenate itself,” Blankenship said.
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