The blue light burns out: Kmart in Village closes doors
BY DEAN MOSES
Attention Kmart shoppers:
It’s the end of the
discount store’s era in
Manhattan.
Kmart on Astor Place in the
East Village unceremoniously
closed its doors for the last time
on July 12, much to the chagrin of
shoppers who were still attempting
to access the store.
For over two decades, the
Kmart at 770 Broadway has been
a one-stop-shop for many lower
Manhattanites and even those
traveling from Uptown or the
outer boroughs.
However, on July 12, the once
three-fl oor department store —
which had shrunk to two fl oors
by 2018 — shuttered their revolving
doors for good, leaving some
confused and others reminiscing
of memories made there.
The morning was fi lled with
disappointment for prospective
consumers as one by one they
sidled up to the storefront, only
to fi nd it locked or to be turned
away by security guards inside
saying, “Out of business.”
Some brought carriages that
would ultimately remain empty
while others even tried to make
returns.
A security guard at Kmart’s Astor Place location turns away customers.
Clare Summers lugged a carpet
over her shoulder and was
shocked after yanking at the
doors.
“It’s going to be a bummer for
the NYU kids, but I don’t necessarily
think these big box stores
have a super great place in the
city, so I am not super sad about
it,” Summers said. “I just have
no idea how I am going to return
this.”
Several New Yorkers see the
Astor Place location as more
than just a store and instead a
hub fi lled with memories of their
youth.
“I used to hang out here with
my friends,” Snow said as he
gazed through the glass. “What
PHOTO BY DEAN MOSES
was cool about this place is that
you didn’t have to buy anything.
You could just look around. There
was even a couch on the bottom
fl oor you could sit on and watch
the subway.”
The tidal wave of closures
began in 2018, when Sears Holding
Corp. — the parent company
of Kmart — fi led for Chapter 11
bankruptcy and since then stores
have been closing throughout the
country. Approximately 96 were
closed by February 2020, one being
the iconic West 34th Street
location at Penn Station, which
shuttered in May 2020.
In mid-April 2021, about 18
Sears stores and eight Kmart
shops had seen their last of their
days — and now this summer
the fi nal stronghold in Lower
Manhattan has gone by the
wayside.
After fi ling for bankruptcy four
years ago, Kmart was acquired by
Transformco and while some of
the retailers were spared from
liquidation, the onslaught of the
COVID-19 pandemic was the fi -
nal straw that broke the discount
store’s back with numerous shops
being shuttered.
Shoppers told amNewYork
Metro on Monday that they were
disgusted regarding the lack of
communication, which resulted
in customers pleading through
the entrance doors with security
guards for information, especially
for those looking to use Kmart’s
pharmacy.
This portion of the store is
said to remain open until July 17
so that patrons may pick up any
remaining prescriptions.
Doctor beaten in anti-gay attack in Village speaks out
BY TAT BELLAMY-WALKER
An unknown suspect hurled anti-
LGBTQ slurs and punched a man
in Greenwich Village on July 3, the
NYPD said.
Dr. Sina Rezaie, 29, a native of Jacksonville,
Florida, toldNBChe was walking
home from the subway in Manhattan at 3
a.m. when a man shouted a homophobic
slur at him. Shortly after, the perpetrator
punched and kicked the victim several
times before fl eeing the scene.
Rezaie left the attack with multiple injuries,
including a broken jaw that doctors
wired shut with metal,according to NBC.
He was transported to a nearby hospital
and is in stable condition, police said.
“He called me a ——-, and then half
a block later, he came from behind and
kicked and punched me multiple times,”
Rezaie told NBC hours after the attack
from his hospital bed.
Following the incident, Rezaie sought
Dr. Sina Rezaie was a victim of an anti-LGBTQ attack in Greenwich Village on
July 3.
assistance at an unnamed bar. His friends,
Laurie Beck and Richard Delay, who are
employees at the bar, said they noticed
PROVIDED
Rezaie was frantically wandering the
streets.
“Delay went outside to check it out,
then he starts waving to me, so I grabbed a
bottle of water and some paper towels and
ran outside,” Beck told NBC.
Rezaie was holding his mouth and had
blood all over his face when Delay saw him.
“He said that he had gotten attacked by
some guy who said something to him as
he came off the train,” Delay told NBC.
“Apparently, the guy called him a slur and
then threw him to the ground and started
kicking him repeatedly.”
This incident comes amid a string of
anti-LGBTQ incidents in New York City.
On July 6, a suspect wielding an unknown
objectslashed a man in the facewhile hurling
anti-gay statements. Similarly, on July
1, aman was stabbed and allegedly called
a “f****t”by an unidentifi ed suspect on the
subway.
As Rezaie recovers from his injuries, he
is still trying to understand the motivations
of his attacker.
“I don’t know why this happened to me,”
he told NBC.
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