The last thing you’d want to do in the middle of winter – let alone last week’s Polar Vortex™ – is ride a bike through the ice wind, so unsurprisingly bicycle stores tend to struggle a bit while the temperatures are down (plus Citibike no doubt took a big chunk of the rental market away…). It looks like Manhattan Bicycles, near 53rd & 9th, couldn’t make it through the winter, and has closed for good. The shutters have been down for the past few days:
And they’ve already covered up the sign…
You can still just make out the always-humorous open-“Sonday” message on the shutters:
It’s disappointing to see what many seemed to consider to be a good, reliable bike shop close down. Manhattan Bicycles even was picked as the “Best Reasonable Bike Shop” in 2012 by the Village Voice. It’s not all bad news for bike shops though – Danny’s Cycles relocated to a big new spot on 10th Ave in September – but it looks like at least 9th Ave has gotten too expensive (as if that’s a surprise to anyone) for them to stay.