Store block on 9 Ave. latest victims of rising rents
The eastern side of Ninth Avenue between 17th and 18th streets, where Chelsea meets the Meatpacking District, has ‹ until now ‹ withstood the crosscurrents of change in the area.
It is a place where low-income residents still have homes and small stores prosper. But with a new owner, eight shops on the block — among them a candy store, a barbershop, a liquor store and a dry cleaner ‹ are threatened by dramatically rising rents.
“Eventually, if we keep letting mom-and-pop stores close down we will be forced out of the community,” said Miguel Acevedo, an activist and a resident of Fulton Houses, a low-income apartment complex across the street from the block.
For Acevedo and about 1,500 residents at Fulton Houses, the endangered shops have been an affordable lifeblood of goods and services, and he is rallying the community to save them.
