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A thift shop will replace the popular Fishs Eddy kitchenware shop on Montague Street, which has will close on Sunday citing the strip’s high rent.
The Stoop hears that Housing Works, a Manhattan-based non-profit agency that combats AIDS and homelessness, will open its first Brooklyn thrift shop in Fishs’ location in two weeks or so. The store, modeled on Housing Works’ popular Soho cafe-bookshop, will sell clothes, books, furniture and antiques.
Maybe their experience in Soho has inured them to the problems of high rent, which is what ultimately caught Fishs Eddy, which was on Montague Street for two years.
“Our rent was just too high,” said Julie Gaines, who owns Fishs Eddy — which is named after a Catskills town — with husband Dave Lenovitz.
Gaines and Lenovitz opened their first store in Manhattan more than two decades ago, specializing in “American sturdyware,” odd tableware originally culled from restaurant, nightclubs and Elks lodges.
Business was good — good enough for Gaines and Lenovitz to add paper and textiles to their product mix — but it still fell short of allowing the couple to pay those high Montague rents.
“The commercial rents are definitely increasing by the day,” said Sandra Dowling, the owner of Brooklyn Heights Real Estate. “Most small businesses that don’t have corporate backing can’t afford to come here [so] Montague Street is losing the charm it had in the 1990s. People are going elsewhere for that now.”
The Fishs Eddy net will finally snap shut on Sunday, Jan. 14. Until then, savvy shoppers have been scooping up plates, glasses and ceramics at 75 percent off (right).
Gaines, however, is not completely discounting a return to Brooklyn in the future: “I believe we’re going to be missed,” she said.
©2007 The Brooklyn Paper
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