Broadway Newsstands Vie for Well-Read Clients

Students and area residents in need of a magazine, the latest news, or a quick snack have two options between 111th and 112th Streets: the mom-and-pop Global Ink on the east side of Broadway or the chain-owned Universal News Cafe on the west side.

For nearly three years, these two news stores have competed for customers, and sometimes the competition has been personal.

Even some Morningside Heights residents have gotten involved, organizing a boycott of Universal News on behalf of Global Ink.

Global Ink, which is owned by Essam Moussa and his wife, Karen Dixon, moved into its current location--a building owned by Columbia University--in June of 1999. Universal News, owned by Hasan Reda, moved in across the street six months later.

Moussa says that Universal News has "been trying to put us out of business ever since they came."

As evidence for this statement, Moussa points to the 20 percent discount on all merchandise that Universal News instituted as soon as it arrived at its Morningside Heights location. It continued the discount for eight months before raising prices to normal levels--in order to compensate for lost profits, according to Moussa.

Moussa also cites the fact that all the other stores in the Universal News chain are located below 72nd Street. "[Reda] never thought about opening a store in the Upper West Side," Moussa said. "As soon as he heard about us, he went across the street ... just to put us out of business."

Reda, for his part, has not agreed to an interview regarding the Morningside Heights branch of his store, and Universal News employees said they were unaware of Moussa's allegations.

Mohammed Elgandy, who has managed the 112th Street location of Universal News Cafe for three months, said he did not think that Reda was ever trying to put Global Ink out of business. "We've been through three managers in one year," Elgandy said, "and I never heard about this until now."

Nonetheless, the two stores have a history of conflict going back as long as they have been in existence.

Just one week after the opening of Universal News, The New York Times ran a story about the tension between the two businesses.

In that article, Columbia's Vice President of Institutional Real Estate Bill Scott was quoted as being sympathetic to Global Ink's position. "Clearly it's not a normal business decision to open up right across the street from a place where the exact same business exists," Scott said of Universal News at the time.

But Scott also admitted that Universal News had expressed interest, six months earlier, in renting the University-owned site that was ultimately occupied by Global Ink.

Global Ink got the site over Universal News and several other potential tenants because, according to Scott, the University prefers to rent its building space to local businesses.

Now, almost three years later, both stores still exist, and so does the tension between them.

For some, the battle between news stores represents a larger battle--the battle of the little guy against the larger company.

Ibrahim Aly, an employee of Global Ink, said the presence of Universal News is part of a larger trend of increasingly corporate provision of goods and services around the city. "They're a huge chain," he said, "with some 20 stores up and down the area. We have just the one branch; of course they'd want to close us down."

Some Morningside Heights residents agree. Krista Wergeland of Neighbors United Against KFC, the force behind a planned boycott of the fried-chicken chain's new local outlet, feels strongly about defending the interests of local entrepreneurs. "We need to make it clear to corporations that they can't just buy people out."

Acting on sentiments like these, some residents began to boycott Universal News soon after it opened. Moussa said support from residents and Columbia University has proven crucial in keeping Global Ink open. "My wife and I opened this store because there was nothing else like it in the neighborhood. The people in the neighborhood have been very supportive of us, and it's because of the support of the neighborhood that we're still here," he said.

Morningside Heights residents have a long history of supporting local merchants. After residents' protests, CVS, for instance, closed its doors just one year after opening a store at 102nd Street. The next large boycott is the one residents are planning for the KFC scheduled to open soon at Straus Park.

But boycott or no boycott, both news stores seem to have entrenched themselves in the neighborhood. And whether they like it or not, Morningside Heights will probably have to be a town that is big enough for the both of them.