A GAP Kids is coming to Park Slope. According to one source, a friend who lives on 13th Street, GAP had been looking for a large space in Park Slope for five years and have now purchased the building on the corner of 13th Street and Fifth Avenue that, until recently, housed a Salvation Army; they’ve also purchased the building next door.
This may come as a surpise to those who think of Fifth Avenue above 9th Street as a strip of discount clothing stores, bodegas and credit furniture joints.
But the times they are a-changing on Fifth. Dunkin’ Donuts/Baskin Robbins has set up shop between 9th and 10th. An Eckard Drugs is on the corner of 9th Street and Washington Mutual Bank, a well-reviewed Indian restaurant called Kinara (between 10th and 11th) are also new arrivals, not to mention all the cell phone stores.
For years Slope residents have wondered why there was no GAP in Park Slope. To many, Seventh Avenue seemed an ideal location for a store. One explanation went that weekday pedestrian traffic on Seventh was not sufficient to make it economically viable for a national chain. Many local vendors used to complain that nobody liked to part with their money on Seventh Avenue (they saved it for shops in Manhattan). Back in the 1980’s there was a Benneton on Seventh Avenue but it closed after a few years.
That was then this is now. Seventh Avenue has Aersoles, Rite Aid, Starbucks, Radio Shack, Barnes and Noble and…
I suspect that a lot of national chains are studying the new Aersoles shop on Seventh Avenue above Union Street. If that shop does well, my guess is other national brands will follow: the shopping malling of Seventh Avenue awaits us perhaps.
Fifth Avenue does have quite a few national brands like Payless, Mandee, Dunkin Donuts, and Eckerd Drugs, McDonalds (on 9th off of Fifth) and it seems to be a thriving commercial strip.
So here it comes: A GAP in Park Slope. I hope it’s a good GAP and not one of those second rate GAPs like the one they had on Montague Street in Brooklyn Heights for years. My guess is that it will be a good one, because it’s going to get a lot of publicity as the first one in the Slope. It may well be one of the more sucessful Gaps in the New York City area.
And why not? There’s a lot of money here and a lot of babies, kids and teens who need blue jeans, cool t’s, and other up-to-the-minute garb.
The abover poster is wrong. Gap pays its employees the prevailing wage for the community. It is not fair to compare the wages of US citizens with 3rd world workers where the cost is living is much, much lower. This is typical BS from radical leftists.
The Gap is great when you want clothing made by exploited children in third-world countries. They make pennies so you can wear cheap garbage, then lament that all your community’s money has been channeled to a few rich people very far away.
Sorry to disappoint everyone, but there are no current plans for a GAP store at this location, nor a “Superthrift”. Maybe some fact-checking would be in order.
The prospective 5th Avenue tennent is actually Superthrift, a new concept store being developed by Wallmart. Their under the radar stategy is to secure undervalued sites with previous thrift store tennents, hense the name Superthrift. The idea is a micro version of Wallmart geared towards urban dwellers. It will mostly sell returned or damaged merchandise from regional Wallmart stores at drasticly reduced prices. They have allready secured store sites in Williamsburg, and the lower east side.
What’s the matter pastco? Do you think that the Gap has better stuff than those independently owned shops and is going to take away their customers? Get real. Everyone in the slope prefers to shop at those places but sometime you just need staples so personally welcome the gap.
What’s with the nasty comment? Gap to me is one of those places you kind of wish never made it to the city, but you still manage to find exactly what you want there when you’re looking for something in particular.
It is comical to see a site that has ads for locally owned clothing stores hyping a pathetic Gap Kids that you could get in anywhere USA.
Kinara does have fabulous food but its service leaves a lot to be desired. I always order the food to be delivered and it’s great but once my wife and I decided to eat there. Big mistake. Service was so slow or non-existent actually (no one ever came over to our table and the guy taking the delivery orders fought with the waiter the whole time) that I finally pulled out my cell phone and called in an order from my table. When I told them where I was calling from, they looked over, laughed and brought the food over promptly — before everyone else!!
Kinara does have fabulous food but its service leaves a lot to be desired. I always order the food to be delivered and it’s great but once my wife and I decided to eat there. Big mistake. Service was so slow or non-existent actually (no one ever came over to our table and the guy taking the delivery orders fought with the waiter the whole time) that I finally pulled out my cell phone and called in an order from my table. When I told them where I was calling from, they looked over, laughed and brought the food over promptly — before everyone else!!
Just for your information – the well-reviewed Indian restaurant is called Kinara and it’s on 5th between 10th/11th. And it’s fabulous.