Local Newsstand Wins Out Against Competitor

It wasn't long after Universal News Café posted a "for rent" sign in its window that neighborhood activists were cheering its departure as a victory for Global Ink, the 'little guy' rival magazine store directly across Broadway between 111th and 112th Streets.

Universal News Café closed its doors for good in December after a long battle with Global News for the business of its Morningside Heights neighbors.

Three years ago, Global Ink won the lease of Columbia University space over Universal News Café, which moved in across the street five months later to try to capture the market.

"I think the calculation of Universal News was that everybody on the west side of Broadway would go to them and that the people on the east side would go to Global Ink," said Curtis Arluck, president of the Broadway Democrats.

But community leaders feared that Universal News Café, a chain store with several locations around the city, would put Global Ink, a mom-and-pop store owned by longtime neighborhood residents, out of business. Through emails to residents and flyer campaigns, they organized a boycott of Universal News to get magazine shoppers to cross the street to Global Ink.

"They've supported us all the way," said Essam Moussa, the owner, with his wife Karen Dixon, of Global Ink. "I've always said that if we were in any other neighborhood in New York, we would've been out of business a long time ago. But because of Morningside and the people here, we were able to stay," he said.

The battle has been raging since Universal News Café moved in and lowered its prices by 20 percent for all products for its first eight months in business. The New York Times even profiled the dueling stores in its Metro section.

"Clearly it's not a normal business decision to open up right across the street from a place where the exact same business exists," Bill Scott, Columbia's Deputy Vice President of Institutional Real Estate, told the Times.

Initially, Scott visited several of Universal News Café's stores before he decided to lease the Columbia-owned property to Global Ink. He told the Times that he "visited some of his stores, and they weren't horrible. They just felt anonymous. Obviously a magazine is a magazine, but we like places with a more personal touch. We felt Essam and Karen would deliver that," he said.

Hasan Reda, who owns the Universal News Café chain, would not return calls for comment on his store's closing. Baha Leithy, an employee of the Universal News Café across from Global Ink, said "business was no good" as he finished cleaning out the empty space.

Leithy attributed bad sales to the fact that "this area is not that busy." He said that because Columbia was on the other side of the street, "it helped [Moussa] to be on the other side."

Moussa said that he did not know how much business Universal News Café had taken from Global Ink, but "whatever he took from us was crucial. We will know by the end of the year, though I don't think he had that much business to begin with."

In addition to the boycott, Moussa cited his willingness to work with multiple distributors as one of sources of his survival. He said while he worked with distributors from all over the country and had the capacity to mail back overstock, Reda only worked with local ones and could not send back overstock.

As thanks to the community for its support, Global Ink is offering its customers a free cup of coffee with any purchase through Jan. 31.
Universal News Café is not the only store to close in Morningside Heights over winter break. Tamarind Seed also closed its doors after the landlord reportedly demanded a steep hike in the rent. McDonald's has shown an interest in the space, and although some of the building's co-op members have voiced opposition to McDonald's, the building's landlord ultimately controls storefront leases. The landlord could not be reached for comment.