
THE New York Times is out today with a story on the emptying out of the Blanchard and Paragon buildings on Borden Avenue, in order to make way for higher-paying office tenants. Whole businesses are vacating the premises, typified by the protagonist of the story, a furniture upholsterer who is leaving for Long Island. LICtalk has previously profiled two businesses in the Blanchard. The first BklynBooks (aka iPodMeister) was mentioned in the Times story, and is moving to Paterson, NJ. The second, Manhattan Fruitier, has moved a little further east to the LIC/Sunnyside border. Prophetically, the owner of the latter sent me this quote when I asked him about the sale of the building a year ago: [Read more…] about THE DOWNSIDE OF GENTRIFICATION IN LONG ISLAND CITY