By Nina Mandell
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
MANHATTAN — A new grocery store opened in Harlem Friday thanks to a $1 million loan from a city program aimed at bringing fruits and vegetables to underprivileged neighborhoods.
The debut of the Best Yet Market on Frederick Douglass Boulevard will help bolster a neighborhood that is quickly becoming a Manhattan hotspot.
“I consider the Frederick Douglass Boulevard corridor to be an extension of the Upper West Side at this point,” Dawn Tsien, executive vice president for the real estate firm Prudential Douglas Elliman, told the New York Times. “Many years ago, some people said you couldn’t go above 68th Street, and now it is even above 125th Street.”
The grocery store, located between W. 118th and W. 119th streets, is just the latest in a series of new stores and condos to land in the area.
Next to the Best Yet Market stands a condo project called SoHA 118; a two-bedroom condo in the development, listed by the real estate firm Corcoran, starts at $740,000.
A Starbucks also sits on the same block. Four blocks south of Best Yet is the upscale bar Melba’s, which New York magazine raves serves killer martinis, salmon and pan-seared Chilean sea bass.
Harlem Vintage, a high-end wine shop that opened in 2004, also caught New York’s eye for capitalizing on the changing neighborhood.
“The influx of well-to-do neighbors calls for a refined stock, so although both owners know their product after years of entertaining high-end clients with just-as-high-end expense accounts, the team has enlisted a onetime buyer for Astor Wines to oversee the selection,” the magazine reported.
