Fulton Attracting 'Manhattan-Type' Customers?
The Observer has a Q&A with Al Laboz—chairman of the Fulton Street Mall Association and one of the strip’s big property owners—in which Laboz talks about new businesses like H&M coming to the corridor. He has this to say about the demographics stores are looking to cater to: “Now that downtown Brooklyn is experiencing a…
The Observer has a Q&A with Al Laboz—chairman of the Fulton Street Mall Association and one of the strip’s big property owners—in which Laboz talks about new businesses like H&M coming to the corridor. He has this to say about the demographics stores are looking to cater to: “Now that downtown Brooklyn is experiencing a renaissance, with 5,000 new apartments being developed in a four-block radius, we’re getting a new type of highly educated … I’ll call them the Manhattan type of customer. And the challenge that we have on Fulton Street right now is really to keep our core local customer while also embracing the new customer that’s starting to come into Fulton Street.” Laboz also says “major, large-scale retailers” are eying 505 Fulton. Meanwhile, a reader sent in the photo above yesterday, which shows that work’s kicked off at the future home of the Shake Shack on the Fulton Mall—not a Laboz property, but certainly an example of one of the commercial corridor’s newcomers.
Albert Laboz Has a Mall in Brooklyn He’d Like to Sell You [NYO]
Wine Lover: Rob is bursting with confusion and anger and insecurity from his childhood. I wouldn’t take him seriously. I hope that he gets a chance to sort it out, but, even though he’s an intelligent chap, its not going to happen without some help.
I love Fulton Mall! The people who shop there don’t just come from all over the city, they come from all over the world. When Aki & Pawpaw come to North America they shop at Cookies.
I love the great care taken with all the window displays.
wine lover is clueless. midwesterners are disgusting, fake nice, cultureless, urban VAMPIRES! plus they have some of the fugliest of the caucazoid features that exist.
*rob*
Fulton Street is the most totally ghetto shopping strip in the metropolitan area. White people avoid it like the plague. It is low-brow and low-life. It is a cliche of cheap, ugly, tacky, inner city squalor. It is not going to change any time soon. The Laboz Brothers are cheapskate slum lords from central casting.
wine lover +1
i think that every time someone uses the term “midwesterner” they should substitute either jewish or black and see what happens. it’s completely stupid and offensive. as someone who hires a lot of people, the average midwesterner is typically kind, generous, polite, hard working and well educated. NY’ers love to act superior, but i’ve found it’s the native NY’ers who are the least ambitious. also, as pointed out before, trust funders are probably not in Brooklyn, and lots of people get a few bucks from their parents to help them out when they’re young. the only actual young people i know that are supported by their families are either from NY or California and are just simply playing because they are fairly rich.
Fulton is different type of commercial street than say Smith or 5th avenue – where you get bars, restaurants, etc. It is a destination shopping area – like 34th street Manhattan – where you also don’t see restaurants, bars and few people late at night.
I don’t find it so very different from typical mall (not the upscale ones in the richest burbs) – where also filled with phone stores, sneaker stores and shlock clothing stores. With a ‘food court’ and junkie jewelry kiosks. Maybe anchored with a Sears or Macys as Fulton has a Macy’s. But nice department stores have evaporated from retail landscape across country.
Sure, I would like to see something more interesting on Fulton St. I used to go pretty often years ago. But I would never deny it is a busy and successful retail area. The current shoppers there would also probably like more variety.
And thanks for your measured, obviously biased opinion, thals. Ask yourself why Gage and Tollner went out of business? Because the Manhattan type clientele such as yourself didn’t bother to go there. As for making it a place where people want to be- when was the last time you went to Fulton St? Seems to me there are an awful lot of people down there everyday, shopping, eating, walking around. Yes- real people. Maybe just not your sort of people but that’s your problem, not theirs.
I love hearing all you PRO FULTON MALL people rambling on… Walk around in there. No restaurants, no bars, no nice stores… Just garbage stores. Finally the streets have gotten cleaner and the owners of these buildings are trying to make it place people want to be.
Notice at 9pm on a Friday night its a ghost town. Thats not normal there is a reason its like that.
It will change, it will clean up, and there will be restaurants, bars and other stuff.. and it will be great for Brooklyn.