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Third-Generation Bronx Pet Store Owner Closes Shop to Raise Sheep

By Eddie Small | April 27, 2015 2:36pm
 Animal Feeds, Inc. plans to shut down this June after almost a century in business.
Animal Feeds, Inc.
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MORRISANIA — A third-generation Bronx pet store that launched in the 1920s as a feed delivery service for live poultry markets will close up shop this summer so the owner can raise sheep in Wyoming.

Animal Feeds, Inc., a pet food and supplies store which has been located at 3255 Park Ave. since the 1950s, intends to close by the end of June, according to 67-year-old owner Jack Horowitz.

The business began in Hoboken in 1921, when Charlie Horowitz, Jack's grandfather, started delivering chicken feed to the city's live poultry markets, and it moved into its current space in Morrisania around 1952, Horowitz said. It now sells products ranging from bird cages to dog toys.

Horowitz has been involved with the store since he was a child.

"When I was old enough to reach the pedals, I was moving trucks into the warehouse and then started actually doing deliveries in the summer for my father when I turned 17," he said.

He became a partner at Animal Feeds about 30 years ago after taking a break from the store once he finished school.

"After I got out of college in 1969, I started farming and raising livestock and was oftentimes not around," he said, "but [I] came back in as an official partner in 1984 after my mother passed away, and I didn’t want to leave my dad alone."

However, he now feels ready to retire from the business and return to Meeteetse, Wyoming, a town of about 330 people where he spent some time in the 1990s raising sheep and describes himself as one of "very few Democratic voters."

The shop will become a day care center.

He still has sheep in the town and plans on heading back to Wyoming to resume taking care of them once Animal Feeds closes.

It has also become more difficult to operate a small business given the strength of chain stores, Horowitz continued.

The company taking over the space is Tender Tots Child Care Center, a day care and after-school program with locations in Mott Haven and Norwood that hopes to be up and running on Park Avenue by early 2016.

Chaim Weiss, managing director of Tender Tots, acknowledged that it was taking over an iconic store but stressed that the day care would add value to the neighborhood.

"It's not just like we’re knocking it down and putting up houses or whatever," he said. "This is something that serves the community as well."

Issa Aldaylam, a 34-year-old store manager who said he has been shopping at Animal Feeds for about six years, was distraught to hear that it would be closing. He said the store always has everything he is looking for.

"This is the best business," he said. "We always come here."

Store partner Michele Carrasquillo said that while she was ready to move on, she felt bad that Animal Feeds would no longer be able to serve the community and its local pet owners.

"We tell people about spaying and neutering, low cost vets," she said. "I mean, people are taking care of their animals because of us."

Horowitz also described saying goodbye to the store's customers as one of the toughest parts of closing down, and although he plans to be back in Wyoming just a few months from now, he might not be ready to completely detach from his urban roots.

"I’ll get out there sometime this fall again," he said, "but I’m not sure I’m totally giving up on New York City."