Quantcast

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

Doubled Rent Forces Hamilton Heights Dry Cleaner to Close After 30 Years

By Gustavo Solis | September 24, 2015 7:29am
 Fernando Romero walked into the store in 1982 and asked for a job. He was paid $100 a week and learned how to clean, iron, sow and run the business until he eventually took over in 2005. At the end of the month, the store will close.
Fernando's Cleaners
View Full Caption

HAMILTON HEIGHTS — When Fernando Romero moved to Hamilton Heights from Quito, Ecuador in 1982 he walked into Quality Cleaners on 135th Street and Broadway and asked for a job.

“They asked me if I knew anything about cleaning and I said no so they put me behind the counter,” Romero, 62, said in Spanish.

Romero was a hard worker and eager apprentice. He learned to clean, iron and sew and, in 2005, he became the owner.

Now, after more than three decades, Quality Cleaners is set to close at the end of the month. A pharmacy that is willing to pay more than twice the rent will move into the neighborhood shop, he said.

For neighbors around 135th Street and Broadway, many of which refer to the store as Fernando's Cleaners, it’s the end of an era.

“When it was raining or snowing and the school bus was running late, Fernando would let my little girls wait for the bus in his store,” said Gricel Thompson, 55.

“I could go to work and not be concerned about the girls getting on the bus.”

Romero knows all of his customers by name and takes time to talk to them and find out what’s going on in their lives, she added.

Those kinds of neighborhood interactions are becoming rare in Hamilton Heights, Thompson said.

“I get on the elevator every day and the way I was raised was to greet everyone,” she said.

“It is very rare that you get a response. People don’t look up. They don’t smile. Sometimes they don’t hold the elevator open for you.”

Over the last few years, Broadway has lost a number of small businesses where people knew the customers by name, said Annette Robinson, who has been going to Fernando’s Cleaners since it opened more than 30 years ago.

Losing the dry cleaner is particularly difficult because of how connected Romero is with his customers. Whenever she was short on cash, Romero would let her pay late, she said.

“My heart is broken because he is such a nice person,” she said.

“These are the stories of the neighborhood. I think it’s important for people like him to know they made a difference in the neighborhood simply by being that nice guy.”

Unfortunately, Romero’s story is becoming more common throughout the city, she added.

“This is they story of New York, it is not just in our community, it is happening everywhere,” Robinson said.

When Romero put up signs telling customers to pick up their clothes by September 26, some people came into the store and started crying, he said.

“After 30 years I’ve seen newborn babies grow up and become customers,” he said.

Now that the store is closing, Romero is going to try to find part-time work in the neighborhood. He prefers to stay in Hamilton Heights but if he doesn't find work he will likely move back to Ecuador, he said. 

“With the social security checks I don’t have enough for rent,” he said. “But in my country, for $1,134, you can live like a king.”

Romero said the landlord has been very accommodating and the closure does not come as a surprise. Rent has been increasing by about $300 every year since 2005 and when it was time to sign an 8-year-lease, he knew he could not keep up with the increases.

The landlord worked out a deal, only charging him half of the $10,000 monthly rent until a new tenant stepped up. A pharmacy is going to take over the space, he said.

“Everything has a beginning and an end,” he said.