A longtime movie theater with an aging marquee in Pelham Parkway will see new life as an independent supermarket.
The “Green Apple” market is in the final stages of construction at a long-vacant site on Pelham Parkway South and White Plains Road.
Most recently, the building was home to a furniture store. But longtime locals mostly remember it as the former home of the Globe Theater, including a stint as a dirty movie house.
Embrace nabe flavor
The new market will boast wide, uncluttered aisles and have both a deli and hot food bar, said store manager Boris Israel.
Israel also promised that Green Apple would embrace the unique ethnic flavor of the neighborhood, from Caribbean to African to Albanian.
“ A lot of corporate supermarkets don’t care about the diverse ethnicity of a neighborhood,” said Israel. “They just put stuff on the shelves and that’s it.”
Notes from locals
The new supermarket has been reaching out to locals for the last month with a “community suggestions box” outside the storefront.
Among the suggestions put into practice already were adding an organic aisle and making sure that the aisles were not cluttered.
“A lot of notes asked us to keep it clean,” said Israel. “A lot of stores trap you in with all that stuff in the middle.”
The store’s name, tentatively “Green Apple,” is inspired by its location wedged between the TD Bank –which is green– and the Apple Bank.
Theater vestiges
Converting the space from a movie theater into a supermarket has been a challenge, said Israel.
The renovation included straightening out the floor, which was slanted because of its history as a theater.
The former projector room has now been turned into a manager’s office, complete with security cameras and a bird’s eye view of the aisles.
Plans also call for a redesign of the marquee overhanging Pelham Parkway South that once displayed movie listings.
Fixing up that sign will please locals who have long griped about the marquee’s state of disrepair.
“Anything would be better than the way it looks now,” said local Ramon Aleman. “That marquee’s an eyesore!”
Boon to nabe
Among the suggestions in the market’s community box is one that reads: “Hurry up and open!”
But Israel said there was no set timetable for the shop’s grand opening.
The store’s owner, Raphael Montes, was unavailable for comment.
The head of the local business coalition says the store can’t open soon enough.
“It’s a boon for the area,” said Joe Thompson, executive director of the White Plains Road Business Improvement District. “It should bring more people to the strip.
