::Target muscles in::

Any marketing major or art school dropout with half a brain that happened to stop by one of Target's four Bullseye Bodega locations in Mahnattan from the 12th through the 15th knows what's good. Another example of a national retail chain testing the waters under the guise of novelty. The bodega has been a vital institution in New York City culture. These compact supermarkets have long catered to lower income neighborhoods where the small business has long been the cornerstone. However with excessive gentrification in many sections of the five boroughs, major chains and banks have been strong arming their way into said neighborhoods with false benevolence and a foresight of exponential profits. There's too much irony in Target dubbing their latest retail exploits bodegas. This whole creative marketing ploy sounds suspect at best.



I can't tell you how many high rise luxury condo buildings and banks that have opened up in my neighborhood in the past two years. It's sickening. And I hate to sound like a cynical "save New York City" pavement-pounding advocate, but the fact that these institutions are coming in and supplanting the old ones is a harbinger of a sleek urban landscape catering to the young money whose conspicuous consumption is indifferent to the lower tax bracket inhabitants living in in these neighborhoods in question. It's a new dawn; it's a new day.



We all know Target is constructing a new location along the FDR around E. 119th Street. So all who visited the "bodegas," ask yourself...what is Target's main objective in the midtown and downtown areas? I ain't sayin', I'm just sayin', though.