For Sale: A Century’s Worth of Sweat and Sneakers

Photo via Here's Park Slope

Mom-and-pop store Triangle Sports has sat at 182 Flatbush Avenue since 1916. For nearly 100 years it has bravely survived amid the growing monstrosity of its now-neighborhood, much like the last chip in the otherwise empty plastic party bowl. The party is over for many family-owned businesses in the area, as attested to by Henry Rosa, who worked in the store as a teenager and is one of the partners in the almost century-old venture. “It’s getting harder and harder for a small, independent retailer to survive,” he said last week in an interview with the Wall Street Journal.

The rise of Atlantic Yards and the controversial Barclays sports arena has changed the smaller-scaled Brooklyn landscape forever. Growing numbers of big-box chain stores and eateries are following the big money and pushing out local businesses that can’t compete. 

The Triangle Sports building is currently on the market, and a glance at its listing on loopnet shows just how much of an the impact the surrounding development is having. It’s advertised as a “Prime Retail Building across from Barclays Center:"

The site is directly across the street from the Barclays Center; the 18,000 seat, 675,000 Sq Ft arena scheduled to open September 28, 2012.  The arena will be home to the Brooklyn Nets NBA franchise with over 250 events in its inaugural year. The development of the Atlantic Yards will bring the Barclays Center and more housing to the already established Park Slope neighborhood, creating an even stronger demographic for national retailers seeking a presence in Brooklyn.

Christie’s Jamaican Patties, another long-time and much beloved business further up Flatbush, is also closing, a result of skyrocketing rents sought by landlords for any property that falls within the long shadow cast by development corporation Forest City Ratner. They are, by the way, the Godzilla of Greed, responsible for the nightmarishly unnavigable MetroTech and the “crime-ridden” Atlantic Center mall, as it is often referred to in the local papers.

Meanwhile, workers in the independent stores that are displaced don’t have much to look forward to. In a federal lawsuit filed in November of 2011, seven would-be Atlantic Yards workers claimed that construction jobs and union cards that were promised to them by various Ratner-affiliated agencies never materialized.  The lies were so numerous and so little was actually accomplished that City Council member Letitia James called the promise of jobs for the workers, some of whom ended up working at McDonalds, “the greatest bait-and-switch in the history of Brooklyn.” 

"It's just fitting that we end it at this point,” Mr. Rosa was quoted as saying about the sale of Triangle Sports. “It's a little tough, but I think it's the best thing to do at this time.”