Love It Because Its Human

Why I Started Only Shopping At Little Shops

The Dominican lunch joint right near the Marcy J

Sometime during the first days of COVID, I decided that I would, insofar as I possibly could, only shop at small businesses, preferably ones in my own city, that I would walk to on my own hind legs.

I did this in part because of a ferocious municipal patriotism that COVID brought out in me. Everything in New York seemed both precious and infinitely threatened, including the little shops that sold sewing machines or saris or rubber stamps. I wanted to them to live.

Three years later, I keep at it.