Closure of Waldbaum’s worries Bensonhurst residents
Gentile, Chamber of Commerce demand new supermarket
With less than a week to go before Thanksgiving, thousands of Bensonhurst shoppers are scrambling to find alternative places to buy the turkey and trimmings now that their local Waldbaum’s Supermarket has closed for good.
Caught in the fallout of a bankruptcy filing by its owner, the Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company, Inc., commonly known as A&P, the Waldbaum’s Supermarket at 8121 New Utrecht Ave. closed its doors on Nov. 19, leaving 70 employees without jobs.
Waldbaum’s had been operating at the site for 37 years, according to Councilmember Vincent Gentile. Bensonhurst residents interviewed by the Brooklyn Eagle said that even before Waldbaum’s opened, the site was a Pantry Pride Supermarket. “There’s been a supermarket here going back 50 years,” one resident said.
On Thursday, as the last of the shoppers entered the Waldbaum’s parking lot to grab the few items still left on the supermarket’s nearly bare shelves. Carlo Scissura, president and CEO of the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce, and Councilmember Vincent Gentile led a rally on the sidewalk to demand that a full service supermarket open at the site.