The Manhattan Times

New life for lonely stretch of Broadway

by Adam Garrett Clark

For decades the only thing alive on Manhattan’s Broadway tip, the last stretch of commercial space from W. 213^th to W. 218^th Streets, was Riverdale Funeral Home. The almost 50-year-old funeral home outlived its two nearest competitors on W. 204^th Street and W. 207^th Street, buying them out while its surroundings remained an anticlimactic ending to the famous avenue.

For years the stretch was mostly delis, auto repair shops and beauty salons, remembers Jim Winkle, the funeral home’s manager for the last 27 years and an Inwood native.

Other locals agree.

“A lot of redundant uses,” area activist and resident Martin Collins added, describing the types of businesses.

“That neck of the woods was ugly,” said Mario Pinto, a sales associate for A.N. Shell Realty, with an office on the strip.

But this spring, with the projected openings of a number of new businesses, the area – call it “Inwood North” – is poised for a rebirth. The near future will bring startling renovations to the former Verizon Building at 5030 Broadway, a new supermarket, a Chinese buffet and Inwood’s second sushi restaurant.

Community Board 12 Economic Development Committee chair Tony Lopez isn’t surprised by the influx of eateries. “I think it might be the success that we’re seeing from other places in the neighborhood,” he said, citing 809 and Mamajuana restaurants on Dyckman Street as examples. “They have shown that there is a demand up here right now.”

On March 24, Lin Yan, owner of the new Ming Moon Buffet on Broadway and W. 215^th Street, was painting the columns red on his restaurant’s exterior. He plans to open in about a week. Everything is ready, he said, he’s just waiting for Con Edison to connect the gas.

Inside he plans to serve 48 different dishes of seafood, sushi, and traditional Chinese cuisine buffet style, all you can eat – $6.99 per person for lunch and $7.99 for dinner.

When asked why he decided to open in northern Inwood, he grins. “This is a good area,” he said, pointing west towards the dense community of co-op apartments lining Inwood Hill Park.

Winkle remembers the location where Ming Moon will open as home to multiple businesses throughout the years “good and bad.” The last one, Passions Lounge, raised a host of quality of life issues in the community.

Hector Bodre, owner of Bodre Cut and Color Salon on Broadway south of Dyckman Street, said he and his business associates have been trying to open a sushi restaurant in the area for years. The urgency came recently when they saw an opportunity in the souring economy to capitalize on a surge in local dining.

Scheduled to open this June, Bodre and his partners will unveil Hashi Sushi Fusion (hashi meaning bridge in Japanese) on 5009 Broadway near W. 214^th Street.

According to Bodre the venue will serve traditional sushi with fusion entrees of Japanese and Latin cuisine. There will also be an old style “speakeasy” themed bar with bitters and fresh pureed juices.

Real estate agent and local resident Pinto, whose agency brokered the deal with Antillana Supermarket on 5069 Broadway near W. 216^th Street, is excited to finally see a market in his area. People won’t have to “climb mountains to get to Whole Foods [anymore],” he said.

The market will have “high-end produce, meat and fish departments, quality imported foods and high-end fruits, which is really hard to find up here,” Pinto said.

The owner, Jose Munoc, is the same businessman who opened an Antillana Supermarket on Nagle Avenue near Arden Street. Working at the new market’s site, his son, Ramon Munoc, said the store should be opened by late April.

For years, area businesses relied on the hundreds of Verizon workers at 5030 Broadway, until the telecommunications company consolidated its workforce downtown, finally selling the building to Edison Properties in 2006.

Foot traffic has picked up since Edison opened Manhattan Mini Storage and, last year, began filling its 52 Workspace office units. Later this year it will open a two-floor glass atrium on the Broadway façade, flanked by mixed-use retail spaces, according to Jason Miller, an associate of real estate leasing at Edison Properties.

Activity has also increased with the June 2008 opening of Isabella’s Home Care Training facility at 5073 Broadway and the recent arrival of the Dyckman Job Center on 10^th Avenue and W. 216^th Street.

“We did not think we would fill the space that fast,” said Isabella director of marketing Betty Lehmann. “We’re actually at capacity.”

The center would like to grow past the 250 employees who report to the Inwood North offices, but it is dependent on dollars from Albany in the state budget – something not too promising these days.

“That would be our dream. We would love to be able to expand,” Lehmann said.

Pair that with the lunch crowd from the Kingsbridge Bus Depot and the Time Warner building on 10^th Avenue, and you’ve got a lot of feet circling Manhattan’s northernmost streets.

One business that doesn’t seem likely to capitalize on the growing number of pedestrians is the 24-hour Twin Donut on Broadway and the corner of W. 218^th Street. The project has halted indefinitely.

Architect Noel Wong of Design Builder who filed the building plans, said the project has been shut down and he has lost contact with the owners.

Starting with pioneer businesses like Carrot Top, La Estufa and the façade remodeling of the Liffy II Bar several years ago, the perpetually gray Broadway strip north of W. 213^th Street has already begun its renewal. It’s now home to a cigar shop, Pilates gym, two clothing boutiques and a modeling studio.

The area is now more than ever, in real estate agent Pinto’s eyes, Inwood’s Central Park West. “Real estate values have climbed – they haven’t gone down really,” he said, citing a recent price war between two families for a two-bedroom on Park Terrace West as an example. “Property here is in high demand,” he said. Yet the area, west of Broadway has always been fairly affluent.

Winkle at Riverdale Funeral Home has seen the changing human landscape first hand.

“Grandma and Grandpa don’t live here as much, now its mom and dad,” he said.

Many of the residents who were around when he grew up have died or moved out of the city. Now it’s the downtown people, the young professionals, he said, “You see them walking around on the weekends.” For Winkle the transformation can only be positive, he said. “Change is part of the cycle.”