Change Comes to Manhattanville

And it has nothing to do with Columbia's expansion north. Or maybe everything.

Walking to Fairway yesterday, I passed the grandly named "125th Street Tire Corp." between the Riverside Drive viaduct and the Amtrak line along the river and found notice that it had closed, to relocate in the Bronx come January. This corporation changed tires and looked to do a thriving business in retreads, always in Spanish and with a tinny radio playing (mostly) merengues. Many of its customers drove the black hired cars that ply the streets north of 125th, where fewer taxis venture. At other times the place looked like a chop shop for forgotten 70's models.

Notice that the corporation had closed was, like every other bit of information about it -- name and operating hours --, written free-hand in black spray paint on the walls of the old two storey market-like structure where it occupied half of the bottom floor. We had nothing to do with the corporation except to listen, whenever we walked past, to the crowing roosters that lived on the premises. It was like a rush of Latin American campo in one heart of New York. Did they relocate to the Bronx as well?