Bodegas of Broadway

The next two editions of Walk the Island now are complete... The Bodegas of Broadway and, in the previous post, The ATMs of Broadway. For a bit more information on the "Of Broadway" series, see the post Pizzerias of Broadway.

A bit of research was required prior to attempting the Bogedas edition as there was some dispute into what exactly constituted a bodega. In the end, it was decided that "you'll know a bodega when you see one." Essentially, a bodega is a small convenience store/grocery store that packs in a wide variety of items -- from calling cards, individually-sold pieces of candy and "Not for Resale" packets of asprin; to more conventional food items like a gallon of milk and a large box of cereal. In Upper Manhattan you are never more than a block or two from a bodega -- at one intersection there was a bodega on all but one corner (think Starbucks in Seattle).

On the Walk I discovered that there are 97 bodegas on Broadway and they all but disappear below 125th Street turning into either outright delis (minus for the most part the "grocery" element) or newspaper stands (absent all but food in small quantities -- primarily just 20 oz. drinks and small bags of chips). I also learned that it would have been far easier because of this fine-line definition to count delis, and perhaps that can be explored in a future edition.