La Traviata, a mainstay of Brooklyn Heights' Montague Street shopping strip for 34 years, has closed. Apparently, it shuttered last November, but I only just noticed. They lost their lease. Montague has become notorious in recent years for unrealistic rents and high business turnover. The landlords, greedy and short-sighted, never seem to learn. The space will reopen as a new eatery.
Lat Traviata was the subject of a May 2010 "Who Goes There?" column. Ralph Tommaso was the owner of the not-special but comforting restaurant.
"Montague has become notorious in recent years for unrealistic rents and high business turnover. "
ReplyDeleteMore like recent decades. I grew up in the area, and I remember hearing complaints in the 1980s (!) about valued local businesses forced out of Montague Street because of rising rents. Some of them resurfaced in parts of Brooklyn past Atlantic Avenue. And this was back when there were still a couple of dive bars on Montague Street.
Brooklyn Heights in many ways formed the template for hypergentrification, in fact there was even an article in a British broadsheet using the neighborhood to illustrate the phenomenon. But the landmarks law has kept the brownstones intact, and since most of the owners of the brownstones are loath to sell and leave, that has actually reduced changes in the neighborhoods compared to other places. The main visible effect is actually Montague Street itself; its long been understood by residents that if you want to buy something useful or go someplace interesting you head out of the neighborhood, though the northern section is not too bad.