Avignone Chemist

VANISHING

Reader Phoebe wrote in earlier this week, "Avignone Chemist on Bleecker closing. The landlord tripled the rent." A letter in this week's Villager confirms the news.


photo via Walter Grutchfield

In the letter to the editor, Sheila Sperber Haas writes:

"I learned from Avignone’s owner, Abe Lerner, that this historic shop will be closing on April 30. Why? The building has been sold, the store’s lease is up for renewal, and Avignone’s new landlord is tripling the rent. Abe had indicated his willingness to negotiate a new lease with a higher rent, but one that’s three times what he is now paying is out of the question.

Avignone — one of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation’s 2013 Village Award winners because of their integrity, history and supportive involvement in the neighborhood — has been at 226 Bleecker St., just west of Sixth Ave., since 1929. Francis Avignone moved it there from 59 MacDougal, where it had opened as the Stock Pharmacy in 1832. (Francis Avignone had bought and renamed it in 1898.)

...It is shameful that there is still no law protecting such businesses and preventing the further destruction of the character of our neighborhoods, and the fabric that keeps our communities vital."


photo via Walter Grutchfield

Wikipedia says it's "the oldest apothecary in the United States," at 183 years old.

But, as Ms. Haas attests, there is no law protecting our small, historic businesses. They can be evicted at whim by their landlords' spiking of the rent.

*UPDATE: DNA followed up on this story and named the new landlord: Force Capital Management, a hedge fund that manages $1.2 billion, led by Robert Jaffe. According to DNA, they're planning to charge the next tenant in this space about $60,000 per month.


NYPL, Percy Loomis Sperr

When the shop goes, what will happen to the building? We might also lose the great ghost signs along the side of the building in the little park called Winston Churchill Square. Still fading next to Hygrade's All Beef, there's been an Avignone sign here for a very long time.


via NYPL

Click here to hear Calvin Trillin celebrate Avignone, the drugstore where he shops, and see co-owners Abe Lerner and Andrew Fruchtman accept their Village Award in 2013.