Bodegas of New York City - 2017 text
They were once a prominent feature of the city landscape, brightly coloured awnings adorned with red and yellow font, standing proudly on neighbourhood street corners around New York City.
Known as Bodegas, these family-owned Latino grocery stores are as much a part of the city’s identity as the taxi cabs and hot dog vendors that line the same streets. They are a one stop shop for anything everything, unique in their uniform individuality. But today, the rapidly changing city is a much different place to how it was in decades’ past, when Hispanic immigrant families set up small grocery stores in the outer districts such as Brooklyn and Queens.
The origin of the design is largely unknown, but it is believed that the brightly coloured signage emerged in the early 1970s to replace the canvas awnings used by street merchants to protect their produce from the harsh sun. Soon after, the look became ubiquitous as these Latino Superettes popped up throughout the five boroughs, owned by families of Cuban, Puerto Rican and Dominican heritage, largely retaining their cultural identity.
Though many Bodegas still exist, few have held on to their original facades in an effort to keep up with the times. Once at the cutting edge of modernity, some now see these awnings as a drooping, broken symbol of what once was. But through many years of changing tastes and gentrification, a handful of the original Bodegas have survived. Many still boast the same yellow and red colour code as the originals, but very few have held on to the angular, box-shaped awnings which hang well into the sidewalk offering “carnes frescas” (fresh meats) cervesas and “productos tropicales” for locals.
In Williamsburg, Brooklyn – “New York Deli Grocery” which is perhaps the most prominent of all Bodega shopfronts, still stands impossibly at the epicenter of trendy neighbourhood development and astronomical rent prices. Its sign has been re-written and the paneling has suffered a few spots of graffiti, but on a dark street it’s brightly lit windows are filled with colour coordinated bags of Kettle Chips and Pringles. Fighting against a tidal wave of shiny apartment complexes, juxtaposed in a neighbourhood filled with old vs new.
Further into Brooklyn, in areas such as Marcy Avenue (near the childhood home of rapper JayZ) and Bedford Stuyvesant, you are more likely to find a slice of New York’s Hispanic heritage. But as is so often the case upon discovery, Bodegas such as Tony’s Grocery on Jefferson Avenue are shuttered despite their signs which read “Open 24 Hours”. All too often store owners have updated their awnings to display characterless digital images of sandwiches and beer cans, moving with the times and yet tragically dated shortly thereafter.
In 2017, the disappearance of stalwarts such as these strikes a sobering note that community identity is being lost to gentrification. As neighbourhoods get richer, they become poorer culturally, and much of what makes New York City unique is being lost in the process.