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Lingerie Shop Closing After Inwood Retail Strip Turns into Restaurant Row

By Carla Zanoni | May 18, 2012 9:37am

INWOOD — A lingerie store in Inwood is set to close at the end of the month after a changing scene on a stretch of Dyckman Street packed it with restaurants and bars and pushed out retail, the shop's owner said.

Anina Young, the Inwood mother who opened Brazen Lingerie at 253 Dyckman Street four years ago, said she decided to close the store as she watched profits dry up and the street scene shift toward something more like a restaurant row than retail strip

“I love my store and the people I’ve met, but this is a business,” she said. “It’s not a hobby, but it’s paying me like a hobby.” 

Young said she weighed the decision very heavily, but felt it was the right thing to do after her the clothing store next-door at 251 Dyckman Street closed last month. 

Brazen Lingerie owner Anina Young said she might hang a bra on her door as a last goodbye when she closes her shop at the end of May 2012.
Brazen Lingerie owner Anina Young said she might hang a bra on her door as a last goodbye when she closes her shop at the end of May 2012.
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Courtesy of Brazen Lingerie

“After Nostylgia closed I felt alone,” she said of the clothing house and tea bar owned by Jason Devereaux that closed after it was unable to reach a deal with its landlord on a new lease. 

Young said part of her decision to close her business, which sold an array of lingerie and items for new mothers and babies, also has to do with the increasing party scene on the block. 

“I wanted a business like mine to move in, but kept worrying another bar would replace them,” she said.

“Bars are fine for lots of people, but I didn’t want that kind of world next to me.” 

So when her landlord said she could exit her lease in order for a new business to rent her space and Nostylgia’s space as well, Young took the opportunity. 

Young said she knows the new business owner, a local family man with children, but is not sure what type of business he plans to open. 

Although Young said she plans to spend the summer relaxing with her son and husband, the Community Board 12 member said she might reopen her business in some capacity in the future. 

In the meantime, she urged residents to shop locally. 

“I opened this store because I couldn’t find these things in the neighborhood and I didn’t want to get in my car and drive to Yonkers,” she said.

“But most people in the neighborhood  don’t want to go to the lingerie shop around the corner, they want to shop at Target or Victoria’s Secret.

“I wasn’t that kind of shopper before I opened, but now I really understand how important it is to support local business.”