The rumor mill is spinning with reports that upmarket grocery chain Whole Foods is set to move into a new condo development to supplant Park West Village, along Columbus Ave. from 97th to 100th Streets. New York real estate blog Curbed notes that, “because something about these Whole Foods rumors always seems to play out, we’re calling this one a done deal.” Bwog speculates that this could spell salvation for Whole Foods fans otherwise disinclined to trek down to the Columbus Circle store for fancy foodstuffs, not to mention competition for uptown mainstay Fairway and nearby newcomer Citarella. With the long-departed West Side Market set to reopen at 110th and Broadway soon, our area’s grocery store wars could be heating up again.

Meanwhile, the new luxury high-rise Fifteen Central Park West (designed, incidentally, by architect Robert A.M. Stern C’60, who also left his touch on our very own Broadway Residence Hall) will bring electronics megastore Best Buy a little closer to campus when it opens in the tower’s Broadway base. The neighborhood’s certainly come a long way ever since Meg Ryan learned, in that quintessential 90s romantic comedy, You’ve Got Mail, to stop protesting, and fall in love with chain stores- or at least their proprietors’ charming online personas.  

-CJS