Photo: QueensPost
Sept. 16, 2011 Staff Report
A 99 cents store is going into the space that was occupied by Master Billiards, the iconic pool hall that closed about 12 months ago.
The property, located at 39-01 Queens Blvd, was nearly rented to New York Sports Club, according to two sources. The sports club wanted to put in a swimming pool but was denied a permit.
Further details are coming.
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I could not agree more with Lisa and have had the same thought:makes total sense to have a bus go up 39th to Steinway. Would be extremely convenient.
Also, I am curious to know why Master Billiards closed down?
Any updates on this?
that’s just great, another 99 cent store full of made in china junk! sunnyside needs to get with the program. the businesses around here are pitiful! no wonder all these stores are going out of business, no one wants to shop here.
This is kind of off the topic but you thinks a bus route that runs from 39th Street straight down through Steinway would be a good idea? I think it would help bring more traffic to this area and would probably help a lot of the small businesses around here.
NYSC Pool, Trader Joe’s, Barnes & Noble, Petco, Starbucks…these are the types of businesses we need to bring to Sunnyside.
No more 99 cent stores! We have enough of those type of stores. Pretty soon Sunnyside will be full of 99 cent stores, pawn shops and thrift shops! Let’s bring some class back to this place…seriously.
WE NEED A SWIMMING POOL IN SUNNYSIDE!! GIVE NYSC THE PERMIT!! WHO CAN WE SPEAK TO TO MAKE THIS HAPPEN? EVERYONE CAN BENEFIT FROM A SWIMMING POOL
Sunnyside needs a good clothing store. That space would’ve been great for a clothing store. i hope the 99 cents store goes out of business quick. what a waste of good space.
A pool would’ve been great in this area.
This is a joke, isn’t it? Forget getting a book store: the nook is destroying Barnes & Noble. Even a GAP would seem better than a 99 cent store. That stretch of Queens Boulevard seems hopeless. I am surprised that P.S. 150 has not taken the area.
I hope it is the “deals” chain that has a place on Northern and in Whitestone. Their stores are much, much cleaner than the 99 cent stores and other junk shops we have now.
Well, I phoned Van Bramer’s office yesterday and my call was very pleasantly returned today. They have received other complaints about this issue and they will check into it and give an update. I told the office that there is now a big white banner on part of the building which reads DEALS in red letters. This section of Queens Blvd. and 39th Street could be considered the “Gateway” into Sunnyside and this is where the festive holiday lights begin with “Welcome to Sunnyside” all aglow for the holidays — Why can’t we do better than a junk store at that location!?!
waaaaaaa!!! to all the crybaby yuppies who flooded sunnyside cause they couldnt afford williamsburg or manhattan and upped a decent rent in sunnyside to out of control rents because you could afford to pay here but not the 2 mentioned above more than the average worker living here! if you dont want a 99 cent store there – dont shop there and it will go out of business sooner than later! to roger_the_shrubber factories creepy in the 30’s??? u have no clue – must be new to town – this area was FINE without the whinning of all u self-centered “all about me” newbies. I have a great idea…pool all of your money together and open whatever YOU want there. You can afford it cause you saved money on the rents YOU raised for the residents here!..last time I looked it was still America and if they want another 99 cent shop so be it — probably to far for you to walk anyway take the bike lane!
how did the y get a permit
that post story way before I ting lious or something . there is a swimming pool in st sebastians on 61 and roosvelt ave. I think that it is an indoor pool its been there for many years.
Maybe this store filled with worthless crap won’t be a cave like so many other junky shops that litter the area. Pray that this one puts some of the other ones out of business and opens those spaces up for something worth spending your money on.
Thanks, Diane K, for actually doing something instead of just complaining. The rest of us need to do more and bicker and whine less.
This was a perfect space for a Trader Joe’s. Good access from Astoria, Long Island City, Sunnyside, and all points east along the 7 train. Oh well. More mysterious imported Chinese Crest toothpaste and $5.00 floral print house dresses for us, along with another cheap, big, red and blue gaudy sign that may as well read “Welcome to Sunnyside, a plain, undesirable neighborhood where you can buy cheap plastic crap.”
Margie – can you give us an update on your call with Van Bremer’s office? I wrote an email the other day to them complaining about the garbage that is consistently on my block and offering solutions, and they came back with a “thanks for letting us know” basically.
🙁
Yet another 99 cent junk store?!? As soon as I finish writing this, I’m getting on the phone with Van Bramer’s office. This is insulting to the neighborhood. A 99 cent store can afford the rent but the NYSC can’t? This doesn’t make any sense at all. We need some nice shops in Sunnyside, like someone else wrote about — a book store, clothing shop, not another JUNK store.
Puhleeeeeeeze! Not another one!!!!
Darn, I was hoping for either a 5 Guys burger place or a Starbucks. 🙁
BTW, I really liked Master Billiards. It was a great place for a chill weekend night. I went there relatively often.
P.S. If it’s important to you that companies INVEST in our neighborhood instead of just opening 99 cents stores, then I suggest you do the same. His office # is 718-383-2917.
You can also call NYSC at 718.361.2254
I just spoke with Jimmy Van Bramer’s office and they are going to talk to the gym, find out what happened and see if there’s anything they can do.
Sad to hear of this! How do these stores stay in business? The Y has a pool – how many pools do we need nearby?
just one more comment, the sports club was denied a permit??? Do you people in the sunnyside BID see the opportunity here with a great fitness chain making that kind of commitment & what it could do for our community and how OTHER stores would move in because of it? Van Bremer instead of posing for EVERY single photo op do something and find a way to get it permitted. We don’t need you posing at yet another street naming.
hey sunnyside BID, you are useless. if there was a way to throw the bums out and hire the astoria BID we’d get some real stores. i make a decent salary and would love to spend it here but there is little incentive to do that when everything sold here is pretty much trash.
Another 99 cents store opened recently on Queens Boulevard in Woodside in what used to be a Blockbuster video rental store. Not sure of the cross street, but it’s part of a mall with Key Food and other stores adjacent to a group of tall Cooperative apartment buildings.
Money laundering, now that has the ring of truth to it. I’d never thought of that. Silly me. So, what is the underlying business? Drugs? Prostitution? What is on the second story of the pool hall?
Oh, no! We need a shoe store (and we used to have shoe stores) ora decent clothing store. Not another junk store!!! That stretch on QB is dismal.
How can these 99 cent stores NOT be money laundering operations if they can afford such high rents? I mean, if there were one or two it might make sense, but there are dozens of them – they can’t be pulling in very much money,
GMAN: “there are two types of people in this world,those who are Irish and those who want to be”
No.
Gman: “…maybe u should move. We were here first!!!”
And no you were not.
I don’t have a problem with Irish pubs. Though, this town does have a lot of pubs; so I can’t imagine how they all stay in business! I lived in Hoboken for a while, however that town had a great deal of people coming in via PATH just for the pubs – so I can understand the supply meeting the demand there – but I don’t see that kind of activity here (nor would I really want to see it).
As for this 99cent store opening, I can only hope this gets that eye-sore “99cents or more” store to either improve or go under for something better.
Yes, get the crappy 48 pool hall to move into that property and get some good ping pong going there. And a start up program for us rusty folks.
The only swimming pools I know in Sunnyside are the YMCA and the one at LaGuardia CC. Someone mentioned one with a senior program. Where is that?
Considering the huge space and location, it will likely go out of business quickly.
oh bummer. i was hoping for a nail salon, thai restaurant, or pub.
and suddenly the TD bank further up the blvd ain’t looking so bad.
Hey atom,there are two types of people in this world,those who are Irish and those who want to be,if u don’t like all the Irish pubs(there is only half as many as there used to be)maybe u should move.We were here first!!!
Who would walk down to that creepy and industrialized stretch of the blvd when there are plenty of other dollar stores closer to residential areas?
Just seems like a bad business plan.
Simple-dont shop at 99 cent stores..and the y down the street had the pool blocked!!!
Even the old 99 cent stores aren’t 99 cent stores anymore. Most of what they sell is more than a buck these days.
Its not up the landlord to “find something nice for that primo space”. They set the rent and whoever ponys up the cash gets the space. No retailer in their right mind would take on a lease in Sunnyside because of the lack of parking and the fickle nature of the residents. Why don’t all you dislikers get together, draw up a business plan, raise the necessarycapital and open a business that you all like instead of carping on about the situation?
Jimmy Bramer………………If you are reading this…………….Can you help NYSC get a permit………………………….???
What about a children’s museum or something……….I think I might move now.
Hmm…is there anyway we can incorporate an Irish-style pub with the 99 cent store and create a mecca of things there are far too many of in Sunnyside?
I am so dissappointed. I was sure something good was going to get in that space; a supermarket, restaurant, NYSC. Instead we get these filthy, discusting .99 cent stores just growing in our area. Maybe they’ll subdivide and we can have another pharmacy.
Your right on OldTimer ….
…Too many .99 cent stores as it is. Who is going to walk all the way down there or take a bus or try to find parking
NY Sports Club would have been great especially if it would have the senior exercise program given by many insurance companies.
Annnd, a pool that would have been a bonus …….. The present gym that has the senior program, in Sunnyside, has a deep set of stairs that makes for tricky climbing (for some) and too early classes ..
Nix on the hotel, we have a few new ones .
From another OldTimer …………….
Small retail is dying. Too much competition from behemoths and web stores. No more 99 cent stores, please. They sell cheap junk made by cheap foreign labor that we have to put in our landfills.
How about a hotel or a trade school or moderately priced housing, an assisted living facility, a community center, a business incubator anything that will help the entire community in the long run, not just something that generates maximum income for an absentee landlord.
We’re drowning out here and we don’t need another junk emporium. Although maybe the crappy pool hall on 48th and Barnett will move there so Sunnyside Gardens can get back its much-needed parking garage. Hello! Anybody in power listening out there?
Is there anyway we can ask the landlord NOT to go ahead with this deal???
Absolutely ridiculous.
I was actually speaking with a NYSports employee the other day and asked them if they planned to take over the space. The employee told me that they were asking for a ridiculous amount of rent and that’s what broke the deal. It would be SUCH a pleasure to have had a pool there!
How the fark is ANOTHER 99 cent store affording this rent? How is it that our neighborhood can somehow have what? How many? Like 8 of these stores?
I go to the one on Greenpoint and I actually like it but the rest are gawd awful.
Another reason not to go down that way.
This is a really bad spot for this store. it is away from everything. you have the senior center and the ny work out place. but it is far from everything. unless you live in the 30ties . plus it isa huge store to begin with. and of couse no parking as well.
How dare we have another 99 cent store. we need control of our town. we need other types of business badly here. what gives in our town. we need a bookstore, clothing stores. what are people looking at when they see our town. we need a brand name family shoe store. what kind of reptation are we developing here. how do we get our town what it needs.
Oh, that’s great, another 99 cent but that’s not 99 cent store.
That huge space? Stinky 99 cent store can afford it but not a bigger corporation store? Here you go haters of chain stores, do you consider 99 cent mom and pop store? I sure don’t.
I would have liked to see a Bank or Restaurant, but the area (the manhattan bound side of the blvd) is cursed and nothing sticks there.