Something Needs to Be Done About the Mishmash on E. 86th Street

The East 86th St corridor is in a shameful condition and doesn’t look like it’s getting any better. The last thing we need is another grocery store.

But recently Happier Grocery, a high end supermarket, inked a lease to take over the 21,000 sq. ft space that formerly housed City Cinemas at 210 E. 86th St. We don’t need it.

The East 86th St corridor remains a mishmash of stores - some open for business, some languishing and waiting for a landlord to lock in a well-paying lease. It has perennial scaffolding, overflowing trashcans, delivery bikes parked everywhere, crime, and homelessness. Not promising. No more ethnic restaurants. No more theaters. No more culture. Barely a sit-down restaurant. And the corridor and its surrounding streets and avenues aren’t much better. It’s getting to be all about groceries.

The area already has a well stocked Target at 150 East 86th St. and there is a Whole Foods a block off of East 86th Street at 1551 Third Ave.

Happier Grocery is definitely not what’s needed nor does it do anything to enhance 86th Street or the community. Here’s the grocery line-up. Starting on the south side of Lexington Ave and East 86th is Lexington Marketplace. Going east, midblock between Lexington and 3rd Avenue is Target. Between 3rd Avenue and 2nd Avenue is Fairway. Between 1st Avenue and 2nd Avenue is a grocery/bodega. On 84th Street and Lexington there’s s D’Agostino’s. On 89th Street and Lexington is a Gristedes. Both are on the east side of Lexington. On the west side, between 88th and 89th Streets is a small grocery that’s alongside a larger market with a street side fruit stand.

On the corner of 2nd Avenue and 86th Street there’s Lexington Marketplace. On East 85th Street and 2nd Avenue on the west side of the street, is another Marketplace. Truth to tell, there are Marketplaces all over the place and beyond the 86th St area. They all look alike, whether big or small, and look like they have the same ownership from the layout and the stock.

I could go on about 86th St. and its environs. And I will in future columns.

It won’t change so long as landlords are the final arbiters of what’s happening on East 86th Street. We once has the East Manhattan Chamber of Commerce. They had offices at 157 East 86th in the heart of the corridor. No more. And it won’t get get better until elected officials and a cohesive community band together, as they did on the West Side where local pressure helped bring about the reopening of Metro Cinema at West 100th Street and Broadway and local officials are trying to do save in mid-town East to try to save the AMC theater in Kips Bay. That’s the only way to get change that serves the community and the economy.

I could go on about 86th St. and its environs. And I will in future columns.

East Side Politics

Candidates past and present were at the Lexington Democratic Club’s first Fall meeting at All Souls NYC on 79th and Lex. All was kumbaya even as some past foes mingled cheerfully.

Club president Howard Sanders announced the evening’s schedule and was followed by former Lex Club president and candidate for 73rd Assembly District, Vanessa Aronson. She pitched the crowd to get out the vote by volunteering. She spoke about her upcoming election where she is running on the Democratic line with no Republican opponent on the ballot.

Next on the agenda was CD 5 Council Member Virginia Maloney, who ran and won against Aronson in the Democratic primary last year but is a big supporter of Aronson as she vies to take over the seat incumbent Alex Bores is vacating.

Maloney updated her work on proposed legislation and hearings, including e-bikes, public safety, anti-semitism, technology and consumer protection. Another speaker was West Side Assembly Member Micah Lasher, who is running against Republican Caroline Shinkle in November for the seat being vacated by Jerry Nadler.une

And of course, Lahser was the victor over Alex Bores in a very crowded Democratic primary for Congress in June.

Also on the November ballot on the UES is State Senator Liz Krueger. There was a joint Krueger/Aronson palm card promising “Delivering results for the East Side, together.” Alina Bonsell is running against Krueger on the Republican line and also has a third party line the Block Mamdani party.

On another note, at the end of the Lex Club meeting, there was a meeting of the divisional committee of the NY County Democratic Committee for the 73rd AD, Part B, conducted by Lex Club member and Temporary Chair Sue Moss. Among the order of business on the agenda was the election to fill the vacancy for District Leader for the 73rd AD, Part B. Reid Aronson was nominated by Vanessa Aronson, his wife. Having been seconded by a volunteer without other nominations, Moss declared that “Reid Aronson has been elected to fill the vacancy for District Leader for the 73rd A.D., part B.”) Having been elected, he does not appear on the November ballot.

Re-reading above, an interesting familial fact emerges in UES Democrat politics. CM Virginia Maloney’s is former Congressmember Carolyn Maloney’s daughter. AM Bores mom Lori is active politically. Newly elected District Leader Reid Aronson is Vanessa Aronson’s spouse. Lasher’s mom, Stephanie Lasher, is active in West Side Democrat politics. And the tradition goes back in time: Bobby Wagner, Jr., whose dad was Mayor Robert Wagner, was a Councilmember-at-Large and Deputy Mayor of Policy under Mayor Ed Koch.