Jamal Survived the Covid Pandemic. Will He Survive Con Ed?
By Roger Paradiso
JAMAL AT VILLAGE REVIVAL MUSIC stays bundled up to keep his shop open, despite his building being without heat for weeks. Photo by Bob Cooley.
Jamal of Village Revival Music at 197 Bleecker has been through a lot for a Mom and Pop shop in the Village. There was the Covid shut down. No funds through PPP or any grants other than more predatory loans. He made it through that and the lean year just after when the Village was just digging out from Covid. He made a deal with his landlord and paid his rent.
He saw friends leave their Village businesses. He stayed on. But now? He is in a showdown with Con Edison.
“It was in late January that they came,” said Jamal. “They dug up the street. They dug up my sidewalk. They closed my doors so no customers could come in for about five days. When I ask them why you doing this like this? They say call my boss. I’m just doing my job.”
“But I can’t do my job. I can’t make a living. There is no heat for most of the time. I stand in my store with my winter coat. The city is falling apart.”
Jamal has his music store on the first floor. Access to the Con Ed pipes are through his store to the basement. “All the tenants have left. The landlord put them in a hotel. But what about me?” Jamal asked.
Jamal is there to protect his investment. He has old CDs, cassettes, and LPs. It was his families business at another location in the Village around 1980. Jamal took over the business and moved to 197 Bleecker in 1990. He is still there.
I ask him if anyone from the city has come to see him. “Nobody has come, not even the Mayor,” Jamal laughs. Gallows humor is the only way to keep your sanity these days.
“I am like the Super for the landlord, but he has just sent me a $4,000 jump in rent. I cannot afford this.”
Not one councilman or representative has come to help him. We are his only outlet for help.
“I’ll wait for the days or weeks to calm down. And then I will go talk to the landlord. He’s a nice person. He helped me during Covid.”
“We came up in a golden age for what we did…
If you’re a young guy playing a guitar in 1967,
1975, 1985, you came up just as the whole business turned into something that no one else thought it would… It’s a blessing.
But I wouldn’t want to be starting now…
I don’t know if you can create it.
It’s just a different world that’s all.”
—Bruce Springsteen on the Howard Stern show
Who wouldn’t want Jamal as a tenant? He pays his rent. He is the unpaid Super. He protects his store which is a valuable New York asset. Greenwich Village used to be the epicenter for the arts and counterculture. While much of that has left due to high rents, several businesses have stayed to give the Village somewhat of a look at what it once was. The record stores were all over the place. Now you have a few. We cannot lose another one.
Jamal said, “my rent is too much already. I want to figure out a way to stay here. It’s all I know. It’s my life for me and my family.”
Jamal stays in his store with his beloved records. He wears his winter jacket inside. He wants to stay even while the Village and many other areas are falling apart. This is not the Village your parents knew. “The Times are changing.”
Ed. Note As we go to press Jamal has now gone over one month without heat.
