Pathmark on Cherry Street Closing for Good Today

Folks, the time has come. At the end of business today, the thirty-year-old Pathmark will close its doors forever at 227 Cherry Street. Its last few months of life had been plagued with issues that stemmed from Hurricane Sandy. Some speculated that the picked-through shelves signaled an early closure sometime last month, but that never happened. That’s right, today is the last day.

The loss of this supermarket during the holiday season has, and will, no doubt put a strain on households in the immediate vicinity, so the Two Bridges Neighborhood Council is stepping up efforts to ease the pain. The community organization is dedicated to developing both interim and long-term strategies to deal with this so-called “food gap.”

More from the Two Bridges press release:

Though Pathmark closes its doors permanently on Friday, December 21, 2012, Two Bridges Neighborhood Council remains committed to protecting and enhancing access to fresh and affordable food for individuals and families in our area. Our ultimate goal is to enhance access to fresh & affordable food while strengthening the local economy of the Two Bridges neighborhood. As part of these efforts, a Grocery Guide for the Two Bridges neighborhood will be published in Spring 2013.

With guidance from Urbane Development, LLC, one of the nation’s leading experts on inner-city food access, we are currently well into the second phase of data collection: executing a detailed survey of local business owners to aid in our understanding of the neighborhood’s existing food network and local food economy, including bodegas, small-scale groceries, fruit and vegetable stands and pharmacies.

Together, the survey data and additional research will be compiled to create a Grocery Guide to the neighborhood. The guide will serve as a roadmap and index of affordability, to allow residents to locate the goods & services they require. The guide will be published in three languages (English, Spanish, and Chinese) in the Spring of 2013.