Basements:
More Than Just Boxes
(page 4)

nstead of storing and preparing food in the basement, some store owners address the space constraints and high rents of the city by opening up part of the lower floor for retail.

Whoever walks into the Duane Reade on the corner of West 111^th Street and Broadway looking to fill a prescription or purchase diapers will be forced to navigate the stairs.

Since using the basement for sale space cuts into the room available for storage, Mohamed Seye, the store’s 27-year-old manager, has to be selective in the supplies he keeps there. Seye has to make sure the store – which expanded about five months ago – doesn’t run out of sale items or laundry detergent, a hot weekend buy.

Opening up the downstairs, though, is best left to the strategic-minded. "You have to give people a reason to go downstairs or they won’t," says Andy Arons, the owner of Gourmet Garage. The location between 96^th and 97^th streets on Broadway is the only one of the four Manhattan Gourmet Garages to use the basement, because, says Arons, "the high rents forced us to." The rents, he says, have been particularly high in the last five or six years.

The downstairs section was called the Kosher Cellar until about two months ago, but the increased amount of kosher stores on the Upper West Side provided too much competition, says Arons. Now wholesale foods, including cases of tuna and tomato sauce, take up the lower level, underneath a sign that directs customers to "Buy the Case."

Although a few store owners have decided to open up their basements to the public, many New Yorkers will remain blissfully unaware of all that might be taking place under their feet. "Basements are wild," says Dominic Garofalo. "It’s like a different part of New York people don’t know."

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