OUR ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO THE BOROUGH OF KINGS
SMALL BUSINESS SURVIVORS
SHOPPING THE PRICE IS RIGHT: Bonni McCoy, owner of Pushcart Vintage on Prospect Park West.
COURIER LIFE, FEB. 26-MAR. 4, 2021 17
BY BEN VERDE
As lockdowns began to lift in August
and Americans warily looked towards
the end of the tumultuous pandemic,
one vintage clothing shop in
the heart of Windsor Terrace became
an oasis for Brooklynites casting a
quixotic eye towards normalcy — with
neighbors fl ocking to the Prospect
Park West storefront to re-taste a familiar
sense of the bygone days.
“People were so excited to feel a little
sense of normalcy, to shop for something
that wasn’t food,” said Bonni Mc-
Coy, the owner of Pushcart Vintage.
McCoy, a Windsor Terrace resident,
said vintage clothes have long been a
passion of hers, but when she fell ill
with COVID-19 in April, she vowed to
turn her fascination into a business
— opening up a shop of her own after
years of self-deliberation.
McCoy and her husband Michael
found a 200-square-foot storefront near
17th Street, which they considered a
perfect location — not only because of
the decent amount of pedestrian traffi
c, but also because it happened to be
on the same block as the fi lming location
of Al Pacino’s 1975 heist fi lm “Dog
Day Afternoon,” a movie McCoy says
she has an obsession with.
Green-Wood Cemetery opening
their 20th Street gates to allow for more
entrance points to the green-space increased
foot traffi c past the shop even
more, and when Elora’s Mexican restaurant
opened up an outdoor dining set-up
next door, it enlivened the street and
brought even more potential patrons.
“It just ended up being a really
lovely location,” McCoy said.
Among the vintage wares McCoy
carries are a fur-lined umbrella, a vinyl
case for 45 records, a Pee-Wee Herman
Doll, an assortment of vintage
lunchboxes, penny candy, and various
vintage housewares and ceramics.
The store also carries a collection
of face masks made by an elderly seamstress
from Brighton Beach who found
herself out of work during the pandemic.
All proceeds from sales of the
masks go straight to the seamstress.
Pushcart Vintage’s success marks
a bright spot in an otherwise grim
business climate throughout the Five
Boroughs.
One Harvard University-run database
shows that nearly 50 percent of all
small businesses that had been open
prior to the pandemic remain closed
today — and revenue for those shops
has decline 57.9 percent compared to
January 2020.
McCoy, who understands the dire
fi nancial situation many Brooklynites
face, says she is keeping her prices low
in order to appeal to the economic diversity
of Windsor Terrace, which is
home to a good portion of workingclass
families as well as wealthier
newcomers. Many of the clothes are
between fi ve and 10 dollars, which has
been a boon for the neighborhood’s
teenage population.
“I’ve got a lot of teenagers coming,
my price point is pretty low, so they
will take a break from remote learning
and come in and get a four-dollar
necklace or something,” she said. “I really
just wanted to make the store accessible
to everyone.”
Get her
thrift
Windsor Terrace’s
Pushcart Vintage
off ers aff ordable
throwback goods
Pushcart Vintage, 270 Prospect Park
West near 17th Street in Windsor Terrace,
(908) 403-8551, 11 am – 7 pm Sat-
Sun, 12 pm – 7 pm Wed-Fri.
Photo by Ben Verde