No. of Stations in Borough
Fell 35 Percent in Six Years
By Samuel Newhouse
Brooklyn Daily Eagle
ATLANTIC AVENUE – Brooklyn Heights cab drivers were terrified to find that yet another local gas station – the Shell station at Henry Street and Atlantic Avenue – was closing its doors.
In fact, the Shell station is just undergoing maintenance and will start pumping gas again soon. Its subterranean gas tanks have been removed, and according to an employee there, will be replaced by the end of the month.
That doesn’t mean that there isn’t a shortage of gas stations in Brooklyn, however.
“There’s no gas stations around here,” said a dispatcher at New Montague Car & Limo, across from the Shell station currently under repair. “Our drivers have to go all the way to Fourth Avenue or farther. There’s nothing between Hicks and Fourth Avenue.”
Two gas stations that were formerly located at Atlantic Avenue and Boerum Hill Place are both now closed.
According to the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce’s Fall 2008 Labor Market Review, Brooklyn retail trade posted a 7.3 percent increase in jobs and a 6.1 increase in stores from 2001 to 2007. But the number of gas stations fell 35.2 percent, and motor vehicles and parts dealers fell 8.1 percent.
The constantly rising gas prices of the year have forced local drivers to use their cars more and more economically, and hurt revenues for large gas companies.
Exxon Mobil announced in June that it would sell off 2,220 gas stations, representing one-fifth of the Exxon and Mobil gas stations in the country. At that point, gas was just reaching $4 a gallon.
With the recent crash in gasoline prices to less than $2, some new gas stations may start to return to Brooklyn. The few that are already here could stand to make a considerable profit.
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© Brooklyn Daily Eagle 2009
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