Jackson Heights Life

Ingrid's is becoming a medical office? The former clothing store next to Table Wine is becoming a medical office. Both of them?

KGDHP--the Kew Gardens bookstore came to be with the help of a GoFundMe campaign--or something like that. I contributed. I don't see why this cannot happen here, except for the issue of the rents, the landlords, the mysterious ways in which it can take years for a new business to open, even after a space has been secured.

I simply don't believe that JH cannot support a bookstore, even though Astoria and Kew Gardens evidently can--and sure, why not a multi-lingual bookstore since JH is known for the many languages spoken. Hey, Lockwood seems to be making a go of it, and that's a pretty yuppified place (to use a term that reveals my age; who remembers yuppies?) I'm happy there already is a Spanish bookstore, but since I don't speak Spanish, it does not help me. A bookstore would probably have to be located on a side street, not on a main drag---wherever a more reasonable rent can be found. Or even in an upstairs space, like 2nd Story Pilates?

Some of the other ideas people have floated do seem unrealistic, but it seems to me that a bookstore might be feasible if an affordable location could be found.

These discussions re:bookstores etc are recycled every year or two on this board.

What confuses me is that I wonder what folks see when they walk along 37th Ave?

I see a majority bustling IMMIGRANT neighborhood where immigrant folks arrive to pursue the American Dream. A neighborhood that is famously an immigrant hub.

(Whether or not the American Dream exists is a separate discussion)

We, who are not immigrants, we native English speakers, are clearly in the minority.

And a bookstore, like the ones that exist in the UWS or Carroll Gardens or Soho or LIC or Astoria (which is a hip neighborhood) etc...kinda isn't realistic here...for the language disparity alone...

But my Spanish has improved ten fold since moving here! And that makes me happy.

How about books from around the world just for children?


I just use the library or abebooks.com usually

Except that Inner Peace sold children's books.

I am sorry for all those who "never entered the place."

Inner Peace was a gift shop that catered to the type of individual that was meditative and self reflecting. It was like a sanctuary in there. Experiential, it was unlike any other store. I personally purchased incense and fragrance products, but Marisol always sourced high quality items from indigenous producers. It was not cheap, but the folks living in the high 70s-low 80s could certainly afford the prices there. They just prefer to buy cheap stuff online, and then complain that we have no shopping.

It remained open after 9/11 in part as a memorial to FF Sergio Villanueva, one of its founders. https://www.wnyc.org/story/94167-families-911-victims-celebrate-lives-while-commemorating-death/

I don't just miss Inner Peace. I am in mourning for what JH lost.

and i find just the opposite. inner peace had personality and a unique vibe and lockwood, while fine for what it is, is pretty much a carbon copy of every little shop(pe) in America.

but to each their own.

I wonder if a shop like Dinosaur Hill in East Village could make it in JH.

it seems like more of the recent transplants are pushing strollers, which makes me think it could work. today's infants are tomorrow's pre-schoolers.