Quantcast

The DNAinfo archives brought to you by WNYC.
Read the press release here.

Bring Walmart to Hell's Kitchen, West Side Women Say

By DNAinfo Staff on February 15, 2011 1:18pm  | Updated on February 16, 2011 9:43am

Dahlia DuPerroir (who says her age is
Dahlia DuPerroir (who says her age is "the new 40") and Nivia Ceballo, 65, on Tenth Avenue and 52nd St.
View Full Caption
DNAinfo/Tara Kyle

By Tara Kyle

DNAinfo Reporter/Producer

HELL'S KITCHEN — As aspiring New Yorkers go, Walmart is particularly unpopular, but a few ladies with lifelong connections to the far West Side say something like the mega-chain might be exactly what their neighborhood needs.

Once or twice every month, Nivia Ceballo, 65, and Dahlia DuPerrior (she'll describe her age only as "the new 40") trek down to Port Authority, buy bus tickets to New Jersey, and then haul their groceries all the way back to their apartments at 53rd Street and Eleventh Avenue.

"Between 42nd St. and here, there's nothing affordable," said Chelsea-born DuPerrior, who called prices too high at D'Agostino, Morton Williams, Food Emporium and even, for some items, Western Beef.

Walmart may be an unpopular choice for New Yorkers, but a few longtime Clinton residents say they would welcome one.
Walmart may be an unpopular choice for New Yorkers, but a few longtime Clinton residents say they would welcome one.
View Full Caption
AP Photo/Paul Sakuma

"You need to bring a supermarket that caters to everyone," she said.

For that reason, whenever DuPerrior and Ceballo hear of a new development with first floor retail space targeting newly yuppie-centric Clinton, they come out to community meetings and make their case known.

It's something they've been at, according to DuPerrior "for the longest time — for years."

They were at Danish starchitect Bjarke Ingel's Hudson River pyramid unveiling last week — where Gale Brewer suggested a grocery store, but asked that it absolutely not be a Walmart.

Ceballo and DuPerrior spoke out at a recent West Clinton Rezoning hearing. Other developments that caught their attention in the last few years include Two Trees Management's controversial 866 Eleventh Ave. complex, nicknamed "Ice Station Zebra" by disapproving neighbors.

And while Ceballo points out that staples such as shampoo cost three times as much in Manhattan, economics aren't their only concern.

The women also want a store with spices, produce and bread products that reflect the diversity of their neighborhood. DuPerrior's roots are Puerto Rican, Syrian and French, while Ceballo is of Puerto Rican, Spanish-Jewish and Indian heritage.

For all the transient yuppies and students who've moved into the area, once dominated by Irish dockworkers, Italians and Latinos, they said there are still plenty of Greeks, Mexicans, Africans, Indians, Japanese, Puerto Ricans and South Americans searching for the flavors of their homelands.

When upscale restaurants started populating Ninth Avenue in the mid-1990s, markets selling many of these foods disappeared.

And while women said that Walmartcriticized by City Councilmembers for low wages, union-busting, discrimination against women and gays and unfriendliness to small businesses — does a surprisingly good job of offering specialty food such as tomatillos and sazón, a Latino seasoning, it's not their first choice.

Neither is Trader Joe's, which they said does not provide nearly enough variety.

Instead, in the women's dreams, Clinton would have a ShopRite, like one they frequent in New Jersey. In the aisles on those monthly shopping journeys, they said, they often bump into neighbors from their Manhattan block.

"They have everything you could think of for cooking ethnic food," Ceballo said. "For everybody, no matter what."