EAST WILLIAMSBURG — A bridal shop and party supply store that's rented tuxes, sold gowns and offered lace and balloons to weddings, quincineras and Sweet 16 party's for the past 32 years is getting booted from its Grand Street home.
The lease for Carol Bridal Shop expires in two months and the new owner of their building at 773 Grand St., wants them out, said the shop's long-time owner Maria Teresa Leal.
The sale of the tenement, built in 1920, was finalized in November of last year, according to property records, and soon after the new landlord came knocking and offered to pay them to leave right away.
But Leal and her husband, Ernesto, who've been on Grand Street since 1984 and in their current location for more than 20 years, couldn't imagine uprooting their business overnight, Leal said in Spanish.
"We have orders, Sweet 16's, weddings," Leal said she and her husband had told the landlord. "We can't just leave like that."
In order to stay in business, she and her husband brainstormed and decided to sell the home that they'd lived in since 1995 at 320 Humboldt St. so they could secure a place to open a new store, she said.
They moved to Woodhaven and they secured a spot in Glendale at 69-42 Myrtle Ave., where they'll reopen at some point this spring.
While Leal hopes for a bright future in a new location, the thought of leaving the neighborhood after so many years weighs on her and the family, she said.
"Having to leave the area and start from zero again," Leal said. "It makes you sad...It makes you nostalgic - it's been 30 years."
"But we've got to go," she said.
Leal, from Honduras, and her husband Ernesto, from Cuba, first got into the bridal supply business in 1975 with a shop they opened on the Lower East Side.
They moved to 779 Grand St. in East Williamsburg in 1984 and to their current location at 773 Grand St., just a few doors down, about a decade later.
Bringing customers into the area was a challenge at first, she said, and the vacant trash filled lot across the street didn't help.
"We had to do a lot of advertising to get people to come all the way here," Leal said, adding it took about four years to pick up. Their business, that relied on the neighborhood's Latino families, was steady for decades, she said.
But in recent years, the changing neighborhood hasn't been kind to Carol Bridal Shop's business, Leal said. Many of the Latino families have left the area and younger singles or couples who aren't spending money on bridal and baby showers, weddings, and birthdays, have replaced them.
"Many families have left the neighborhood, Hispanic families, Italian families," she said. "Many have gone from here.
The new residents, "aren't hurting anybody but they're young couples who work a lot," and not spending money on family parties, she said.
The building's former owner who'd lived above for many years sold it off in November last year, property records show. 98 Humboldt, LLC with managing member Jeno Guttman bought the tenement for $4.7 million.
The apartments above the building are currently vacant, Leal said.
One of the people involved in managing the property named Solomon, reached by cell, said that he wasn't yet sure whether the building was going to be demolished or gut renovated. He was not willing to comment further didn't give his last name, but said to call back at a later date.
In the Cut, a barber shop that's also on the property on the Humboldt Street side is also being kicked out, the owner said. They've been in their current location since 2008 and had a lease that lasted several more years so are negotiating with the landlord for a buyout.
"I'm a little shaken up by this," said Orlando Martinez, 38, a long-time neighborhood resident, though he added that he felt even worse for the Leal's next door. "They had to sell their house, they had to move from the neighborhood."
But he added, "She had a good run," he said.
