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Read the press release here.

Dyckman Street Laundromat Closing to Make Way for Another Restaurant

 Duce Laundromat is one of the few remaining businesses on this stretch that is not related to nightlife.
Duce Laundromat is one of the few remaining businesses on this stretch that is not related to nightlife.
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DNAinfo/Lindsay Armstrong

INWOOD — A restaurant-rich stretch of Dyckman Street will lose one of its few remaining service businesses next month with the closure of a laundromat, which is set to be replaced by another eatery.

Duce Laundromat, at 267 Dyckman St., is set to shutter in mid-June, said Steve Gross, head officer of the building’s management company.

Gross said the laundry had five years left on its lease, but the owner of a restaurant planned for the adjacent storefront struck a deal with the laundromat operator to take over the space.

Gross, who declined to provide the name of the eatery's owner, said that the new tenant would combine three storefronts to create a 2,000-square-foot space.

The owner of Duce Laundromat could not be reached for comment.

Many of the laundromat’s customers were disappointed Tuesday to hear that the business was closing.

“For me it will be much harder,” said Juana Peña, a mother of two who patronizes the laundromat about two times per week.

Peña said she has laundry machines in the basement of her Riverside Drive building, but the area has been closed for nearly a year since a section of the basement floor collapsed. Now she will have to walk six blocks instead of two to reach the next closest laundromat, she said.

“I don’t need more restaurants,” Peña said. “I have five restaurants on Dyckman already. It’s enough.”

The next closest laundromats are located blocks away on Broadway.

Ben S., a customer who lives on Payson Avenue and did not want to give his last name, said he lives in a building without laundry and will have to walk much further to do his wash.

“To walk four more blocks — it’s the summer so it’s not bad now, but in the winter it will be crazy,” he said.

In April 2013, Gregorio Gonzalez and Natasha Collado applied to open a restaurant in the adjacent storefront at 261 Dyckman St. under the name Kon to Euro Caribbean Corporation.

Community Board 12 voted against the application, citing the many restaurants and bars that already occupied the stretch of Dyckman Street from Broadway to Payson Avenue. Over the past several years, 10 eating and drinking establishments have opened on that stretch alone.

Gonzalez and Collado have not brought another application to the board since then. The State Liquor Authority said no application under that name was pending.

Gonzalez is listed as the leaseholder of the space on a now-expired permit filed with the Department of Buildings in 2012 to convert 261 Dyckman St. and the adjacent storefront into a restaurant and bar.

He did not respond to a request for comment.