New York Retail Going Under?

New York’s East Village | Photos courtesy of Lucas Drumond

New York, NY — In the city that seemingly never sleeps, COVID-19 caused business in New York City to go dormant.

Last year, COVID-19 pressed the pause button on Manhattan’s retailers and forced the city’s inhabitants into a quarantine that lasted months. The only ray of hope came from the nightly belting of residents out of their apartment windows, displaying encouraging messages which embraced essential workers who assisted on the frontlines through the lyrics of artists like Frank Sinatra and Lizzo. 

Then, another unsought shift occurred, this time through a cultural battle for racial injustice. “Say his name” became the slogan of 2020 as outrage led to protests. Once again, businesses across the city shut down and boarded up to prepare for any possible property damage. Those boards graffitied with affirming words showed support of the Black Lives Matter movement. The New York Post reported tens of millions of dollars in damage done to more than 450 businesses across the city.

Community was spread thin. Connection was lost. That’s changing now as people are stepping out of their apartment buildings in a way comparable to the Munchkins slow reemergence upon Dorothy’s landing at the beginning of Wizard of Oz.

Megan Kinney opened her clothing store, branded Meg, in 1994 as a brick and mortar business in the East Village. Meg’s motto is “For Women by Women” and you don’t have to look far beyond the chalkboard sign sitting outside her store to tell that not even a global shutdown could stand in her way. 

“Tough titties are back!” the sign reads, and just inside the door, Kinney waits for a customer who she can welcome in her store. A single lady walks in and finds a striped, linen poncho to try on. When she walks out of the dressing room, Kinney convinces the lady that it’s the right fit for her. It pairs well with the pants she’s wearing.

“I don’t usually buy things like this because I can’t afford to, but this I will buy,” the lady tells Kinney. She checks out and walks out the door happily with her new purchase in tow. 

Kinney has made yet another sale, but almost two years ago during the onset of COVID-19, she wasn’t sure how her business would stay afloat. 

Kinney explains it as a “surreal” moment. She adjusted to her new reality by attending webinars for small business owners, utilizing a PPP loan and being forced to close three of her then six locations. Though it was a new challenge, it wasn’t the first scuffle Kinney had since opening Meg. Around 2018, she was experiencing a decline in profits, but still managed to keep a steady hold on her store.

“Street traffic had fallen and more and more people were going to the internet to shop,” Kinney said. “It was like this collision of rent and street traffic not matching anymore.”

In 2018, the New York real estate market wasn’t ready to have the conversation with small retailers like Kinney who were experiencing less physical traffic, but a shift occurred in 2020 when a myriad of spaces were headed towards vacancy. Though most seasonal changes call for a voguish new window display to be designed, “Space for Lease'' signs became the trend. 

With the style of clothes that sell at Meg, having physical traffic is virtually a necessity. Customers who prefer to shop in person and try clothes on were left to only online retail during the quarantine shutdown. Now that her doors are back open, “the art of discovery” as Kinney describes it, is becoming real again.

“It’ll always be a digital guess [online]. You have no idea how clothes will fall on your body until it's on your body,” Kinney said. “To be able to really feel the quality of fabric and understand how that relates to what you like is important.”

Eleven blocks south of Meg’s East 9th Street location is a young business on Spring Street bringing a rather colorful glimmer of hope to the reigniting city. Quirky, vibrant and certainly aberrant compared to New York’s modus operandi of basic accessorizing, Min and Mon was founded by a Colombian couple and their college best friend about five years ago.

Starting out as a pop-up in Chelsea Market was a good opening strategy for the business. They gained traction from tourists and international travelers along with New Yorkers who shopped locally, overtime building a strong clientele which came in handy post-March 2020.

“When it all hit, we thought ‘This is it.’ We’re small, we don’t have big investors behind us. We have to sell in order to keep ourselves afloat. There’s no backup plan and there’s no safety net,” cofounder Catherine Mckenzie said. “But to our surprise, our customers continued to buy from us.”

Online orders surged not only from regular customers mostly based in New York and Los Angeles, but nationwide. The question spinning in the three heads behind Min and Mon: “Where are people wearing our bags right now?”

“People were telling us how happy our bags make them,” Mckenzie added. “Just because of color, just because of design, and this sort of uplighting, optimistic kind of vibe that our bags have. They are happy bags!”

Min and Mon’s brand identity radiates happiness. Their twin octopus logo is representative of diversity. It’s an expression of individuality and connectivity that reflects the city of New York. Even if the colorful bags are stuck hanging on a hook due to a global shutdown, they simply exist to manifest positivity. 

Andres Quintero is one of the original creators of Min and Mon. Currently residing in Colombia, his objective was to trade in cynicism and pessimism for celebration and happiness. What stands out about Mckenzie and the Quinteros is their appreciation for both loyal customers who continue to buy and the artisans who produce the bags in Colombia. The stress of closing two stores in Nolita and Williamsburg paired with the sudden pause on production incurred from COVID-19 is enough to make any business, new or old, shut down for good. By way of a plethora of color and a storm of imagination the founders understand that the only way out is through.

“People are looking for stories that can elevate their mood… Our logo is two octopuses hugging each other because we need each other. That kind of loops into our heritage because we come from Hispanic backgrounds,” Quintero said. “As New Yorkers, we tend to gravitate towards the safe color palette which is greys and blacks. But we are like, you know what, there is beauty in being colorful.”

Min and Mon’s artistic goal is to tell stories through the brand's wide color palette. Quintero believes this is part of his Colombian background; everything that shapes our reality can be elaborated upon because humans are “fantastical creatures.” He opposes the idea that what you see is exactly what you get.

It takes a great deal of optimism, and possibly a color-induced coma, to make it through a difficult time. It is optimism that makes independent stores like Meg and Min and Mon shine through the millions of business owners who surrendered to the dim obstacle that the pandemic caused. 

“I would say that I spent a decade building my little brick and mortar business where, I mean, I opened a store, a little tiny local boutique in like a thousand different neighborhoods in New York for every, like, two years,” Kinney said about the legacy of Meg.

There is no need to fix what isn’t broken if it continues to work for her business. 

In Soho, there’s a bijou space where a man pulls a lease sign down from the window. He flicks on the lights, props open the door and scuffs his feet while pacing the brick sidewalk outside. What he is doing is unapparent until after a few minutes when a Uhaul pulls up and two men begin unloading what looks to be long shelves and industrial style racks. It is ambiguous what this retailer will be, irregardless, it is a symbol of New York’s rekindling real estate market.

Above all, there’s hope.