Stodgy Seventh Gives Way to Hip Fifth (FULL TEXT)

LISA SELIN DAVIS wrote in the New York Times: “Fonda Sara … opened Zuzu’s Petals, a flower shop and nursery, on Seventh Avenue near Berkeley Place in 1971… after a fire last summer wiped out her home of 30 years, she could not find an affordable storefront on Seventh Avenue …”

“… she moved to Fifth Avenue near Fifth Street, joining small shops like Under the Pig Antiques and Galaxy Comics in making the leap from Seventh Avenue to Fifth.”

“As chain stores continue to replace small businesses along Seventh Avenue, its hip, younger sibling, Fifth Avenue, is becoming what its older brother once was: a home for entrepreneurial adventurers, many of whom, forced out by rising rents, have set up shop two blocks east and a world away.”

“… rents on Fifth Avenue are roughly $30 to $40 per square foot, half the rate along Seventh Avenue, which, with Montague Street in Brooklyn Heights, commands the highest commercial rents in the borough.”

FULL TEXT: As One Strip Goes Stodgy, Another Turns Hip [New York Times via Gotham Gazette]