The loss of a neighborhood business can deal a blow to its community. Michael Gaines has this Perspective.
My friend Garret closed his bike shop this past summer. The Wiggle bicycle shop has been an institution on the actual wiggle bicycle network in our neighborhood of the Lower Haight of San Francisco for the past decade. Garret fell in love with the neighborhood when he was a young boy visiting his uncle, exploring all the nooks and crannies of the lower Haight, and was enamored with its urban grit and charm. He and his family were drawn to the Bay Area in the 1980’s, first the uncle, then the rest of his clan. Originally trained as a Jazz Musician at Florida State, he brought his love of music to the space and his creativity to the way he brought old bikes and rigs back to life. Not just a mechanic, he was brilliant in enlisting the customer in reviving their respective two wheeled machines.
We have all read plenty of articles about the decay of the retail core. However, something for me felt different about this one, maybe because it was such a personal institution. Garret’s shop has been a gathering place for all kinds of people, be it commuters, avid cyclists, or just neighbors walking their dog looking to say hello.
We are all clinging to hope for the future, and lamenting retail from a bygone era. They say it takes a village to raise a child; I would add it takes a neighborhood to keep a merchant. As we experience more of this loss, I hope the patron, the neighbor and the landlord all reflect on the critical role they play in weaving the fabric of our neighborhoods, and ask ourselves what we are doing to ensure they can survive in a post pandemic era, or are we just clicking and shopping? As neighbors, do we know who owns the merchant spaces near us and are we inviting them to be stakeholders in the merchant’s and neighborhood success, versus just collectors of rent. Garret’s shop is now gone, but maybe he will return, or we can save another. I just know Garret sweated for us and we were all the better for it.
With a Perspective, I’m Michael Gaines.