How do you feel about Christmas music? How do you feel about listening to Christmas music every day for 17 hours? Some New York City neighbors are battling over a holiday display featuring some cute singing animatronic deer, which one resident finds loud and excessive. [More]
manhattan
Modell’s To Take Over A Former Sports Authority Store After All
By 10.27.16
Back when Sports Authority filed for bankruptcy earlier this year, regional chain Modell’s reportedly wanted a piece of the business being abandoned. The chain briefly considered teaming up with a British sports retailer to take over some stores. The deal didn’t work out, and Modell’s didn’t bid on any store leases in the bankruptcy auction, either. However, the chain will now be opening a showcase store in what used to be Sports Authority’s last store in Manhattan. [More]
Terrible Landlord Accused Of Harassing, Literally Freezing Out Tenants
By 7.27.16
The landlord in East Harlem in New York City wanted the last rent-stabilized tenants out. The rest of the building was being renovated to attract market-rate tenants, but the family with five kids just wouldn’t leave, even after the five other households in the building did. Now the landlord has been arrested and accused of harassing the family and endangering their children. [More]
Report: Amazon Is Planning Another Real-Life Bookstore In Manhattan In 2019
By 7.6.16
Back in 2014, Amazon signed a 17-year lease on office space with some retail floors across from the Empire State Building in Manhattan, and that led to delighted speculation that the company might open a real-life store to sell its own products and let local customers pick up their packages. Instead, the office space is just boring old office space. Now, reports are circlulating that a deal for an Amazon bookstore in Manhattan has been or will be signed. [More]
14 More Tiny Urban Target Stores Will Open In 2016-2017
By 12.29.15
Yes, Target is a chain of big-box stores, but the company sees its future in considerably smaller boxes. Instead of suburban stores of more than 100,000 square feet in the suburbs, all but one of the stores that Target has planned in 2016 and 2017 are small-format stores in urban areas across the country. [More]
Amazon Adds 4,000 Items To “Prime Now” Delivery, Because You Never Know When You’ll Need A New TV In One Hour
By 12.10.15
When it launched, Amazon’s Prime Now service aimed to quickly provide customers with household necessities like toothpaste and paper towels. But now, just in time for the holidays, the company is apparently redefining what necessity means by adding some 4,000 items to the delivery roster including big-screen TVs, popular toys and baking supplies. [More]
Toys ‘R’ Us Closing 110,000-Square-Foot NYC Flagship Store At End Of The Year
By 12.2.15
This will be the last holiday shopping season for the Toys ‘R’ Us flagship location in Manhattan, as the retailer plans to leave its 110,000-square-foot mega-store at the end of the month. [More]
Report: Amazon Will Open A Real-Life Store In Manhattan
By 10.9.14
Back in the 1920s, catalog retail giant Sears opened massive spaces in major cities that served as combination retail stores and regional distribution centers for catalog goods. These centers closed in the ’80s and ’90s, but now online retail giant Amazon.com is following the same pattern in a tiny way, opening a combination retail store and pick-up center in New York City, across the street from the Empire State Building. [More]
Manhattan Finally Getting Its First-Ever Dairy Queen This Month
By 5.9.14
People who live in New York City are used to getting what they want, when they want it. Except when it comes to specific chains that have heretofore been absent in the Big Apple, like Dairy Queen. The wait for blizzards is almost over NYCers — the ice cream eatery will open its first Manhattan doors on May 27. [More]
Uber Tired Of Customers Using Cars As Couriers, Begins Testing Actual Courier Service
By 4.8.14
One could argue that Uber is a type of courier service, right? They’ve delivered Christmas Trees, kittens to brighten your day and of course shuttled you across the city. Well, you won’t have to argue the merits of that point anymore now that the company has officially began testing Uber Rush – an actual courier service. [More]
Judge Says Strippers Are Employees, Merit Minimum Wage
By 9.11.13
Are dancers at a strip club independent contractors or employees? That’s the question involved in a lawsuit against a popular Manhattan club and in at least one other pending lawsuit against a club in Colorado. [More]
Papa John's Receipt Identifies Asian Customer Using Racial Slur
By 1.9.12
In a busy food-service establishment, it’s understandable to refer to customers by nicknames or a shorthand. However, problems arise when these nicknames actually appear on the customer’s receipt. Just ask a New York Papa John’s that’s been plagued with prank calls since a receipt identifying a customer of Asian descent as “Lady Chinky Eyes” hit Twitter. [More]
Zabar's Admits Its "Lobster Salad" Was Really Crayfish
By 8.12.11
For twenty years the famous Zabar’s deli in Manhattan has been selling a delicious prepackaged “lobster salad.” It’s beloved by devotees and a tasty treat. The only problem is that there’s no lobster inside. It’s crayfish. [More]
Mom Sues Preschool For Failing To Prep Tot For Harvard
By 3.16.11
A Manhattan mother has filed a class action suit against her 4-year-old daughter’s $19,000 a year Upper East Side preschool for not properly preparing her child for a top-tier university. [More]
70-Year Old Gunman, With Cane And O2 Tank, Fails To Rob Store
By 7.15.10
A man in his 70’s shambled into a tony Manhattan clothing store this week with a cane and pulling an oxygen tank, then pulled out a gun and said it was a stickup. [More]
NYC Forces Retailers To Stop Selling Illegal Knives
By 6.21.10
If you were planning on picking up a sturdy switchblade or gravity knife from one of the Home Depots in NYC for your next home improvement project, or because you wanted to stab someone, you should note that they’re no longer available. That’s because last week, the Manhattan District Attorney’s office persuaded that store and 13 other retailers to stop selling such knives. They’re generally illegal in New York, and the retailers have agreed to surrender their inventory and forfeit any profits they made from illegal knife sales over the past four years. [More]
H&M Store Cuts Up Unsold Clothing, Throws It Away
By 1.6.10
Some retailers donate unsold clothing to charity, or discount it by the palletful and sell it to thrift stores or closeout retailers. But the New York Times reports that the H&M at Herald Square in Manhattan gets rid of their unsold clothing by cutting holes in it to render it unwearable, then throwing it away. [More]
Sears Won't Deliver Air Conditioner Until Customer Pays Fee Sears Forgot To Charge
By 7.24.09
Eric wrote to us this week with a tale of such epic dysfunction while trying to purchase air conditioners from Sears that there’s not much we can add to it. Inside: Imaginary deliveries, super-secret New York City surcharges, and the hazards of daring to order anything over the phone.
