BY DENNIS LYNCH | Locally beloved Astor Place newsstand man Jerry Delakas has seemingly dodged another bullet that could have endangered his three-decades-plus tenure at his stand at the intersection of E. Eighth and Lafayette Sts. and Astor Place.
Although their intentions had nothing to do with protecting Delakas’s business, Community Board 3 voted to ask the city’s Department of Transportation not to allow a second newsstand to open across Lafayette St. from Delakas’s at its October full-board meeting.
C.B. 3’s Transportation and Public Safety and Environment Committee asked D.O.T. to find a better place for the newsstand applicant because the spot the agency chose, outside the newly constructed 51 Astor Place tower, was actually set up with electrical lines to accommodate a forthcoming city-designed kiosk. The kiosk apparently will be mainly geared toward selling food and beverages.
Committee member David Crane said Delakas’s business was not taken into account at all. Regardless, it was good news for Delakas.
In January, Delakas was similarly spared from facing a competitor when members of Community Board 2, which borders C.B. 3 at Astor Place, unanimously recommended that the Department of Consumer Affairs deny a newsstand application on the southeast corner of Lafayette St. and Astor Place, so as to protect the veteran vendor’s business.
“The community members spoke out against this application,” the C.B. 2 resolution stated, “because of its location located just 50 yards from the current newsstand operated by Jerry Delakas for the last 30 years, who is part of the neighborhood and will be out of business, if this proposed application is approved.”
And the community has come to Delakas’s aid before. Locals rallied behind him between 2010 and 2014 when D.C.A. sought to shut him down because his stand was under his deceased boss’s name and not his own. The department finally did shut his stand and hauled off his goods in 2013, but thanks to overwhelming community support and a lawyer, Arthur Z. Schwartz, who worked pro bono, the Greek immigrant was back open a month later and his fine reduced from $37,000 to $9,000 — which he was allowed to pay back on an installment plan.
Sitting outside his stand with a stack of New York Times and Villager Express papers in front of him, Delakas was happy about C.B. 3’s vote.
“Sure, it’s good,” he said. “There’s a lot of competition, everyone wants the same thing — candy, magazine, the paper, cigarettes. You get them at CVS, Walgreens. You can get the paper at Starbucks.”
He said he’s not planning on going anywhere.
“I don’t worry,” he said. “Business gets sick but it never dies. I’ll stick around so long as it’s God’s will.”
