Steinway

Walk out of the Steinway Street M train station and you are greeted with a colorful and varied selection of stores, boasting a wide range of services. Veterinary offices are located next to bubble tea places, which are right across the street from a karate school and a furniture store, which are in close proximity to a halal cart. At first glance, Steinway seems to primarily a shipping district; there are very few residential buildings to be seen in the area. The variety in stores complements the variety in the faces that can be seen as you walk down the street. There seems to be people of every race and ethnicity possible. The streets are wide, providing an open, airy, and comfortable atmosphere, and leaving plenty of space for people to walk around and and window shop. Many stores seem to be newly built, with signs boasting Facebook pages and websites. Other stores seem to be much older, yet still elegant as if their age has lent them recognition and prestige. Yet still other stores, although old, no longer seem elegant, their signboards chipped and faded, their stores cluttered and cramped. Steinway street was an amalgam of storefronts both new and old, successful, and failing. As I walked along Steinway street, it was apparent that a few businesses were definitely immigrant-run, as suggested by the different languages boasted by the store front. One such store, read “Dhaka Furniture” and right underneath were letters foreign at first, but recognizable to me after some analysis. Right underneath the store’s English title, was its Bengali translation. Intrigued by the store that displayed proudly, my cultural heritage, I went in.

Hamid

I entered a single room, very quiet, with piles of mattresses, chairs, and sofas on one side, leaving only a narrow aisle to walk through, to get to the only person in the entire store. The man sitting on the desk introduced himself as Hamid, a middle aged man from Bangladesh. Hamid was a soft-spoken and kind man, his arms stayed folded and eyebrows scrunched as he listened and responded to interview questions. Through the interview, Hamid explained that he lived in Corona, NY, where he immigrated to, from Bangladesh, more than thirteen years ago. When asked about his business, Hamid explained to us that he had acquired the business in 2007 from another owner who was going out of business. He did not have any interest in furniture, but he saw an opportunity for income and took it. This answer from Hamid reflects the experience of many Bengali immigrants who I personally know, including my dad. These immigrants came to America with high levels of education from Bangladesh, but ended up working in industries they had no care for, their only motivation being an income that would allow them to support their family, in the hopes that one day their children would have a better life.

I asked Hamid if he was happy, doing this business. He replied, “At first, business was bad, then for a couple of years’ business was good, but in the last three years, business has been going down.” At first I was confused, I didn’t think he had actually answered my question. But then I realized that to Hamid, income in this business had some correlation to happiness since his main reason for starting the business was income. Hamid said that his business was declining to a point where if business continued as usual, he would have to close the shop. When asked why, he pointed to rising rent prices and decreasing customers as factors. I continued to ask Hamid questions about why he chose Steinway street to conduct business. Hamid explained to me that Steinway street was actually known as a furniture marketplace a few years ago.

I moved on to asking Hamid about his customers. Hamid said that his customers at one point used to be mainly Bengali, as there used to be a large Bengali population in Steinway. However, according to him, rising rent prices drove a lot of them out. Now, his customers, although some Bengali, consist of a mix of Spanish, American, Albanian, and Greek shoppers. To him, the demographics of his customers did not seem to matter, only the number of customers. However, he did indicate that he was thinking about moving the business to Jamaica NY, a neighborhood with a very high concentration of Bengali immigrants. Hamid’s desire to possibly move his business to a neighborhood with a higher Bengali population shows his desire to hold on to his cultural identity. As an immigrant, Hamid would rather move the location of his existing business to neighborhoods where he may tend to those with similar cultural backgrounds, rather than change his business to be more modern and better match the changing demographic in Steinway. His decision to post Bengali letters on his storefront is a clear indication of this desire to hold on to one’s cultural identity after immigrating.

Wanting to know more about why Hamid’s business was declining, I asked about his marketing strategies. He told me that he only had a few ads in Bengali newspapers and did not have any social media accounts linked to his business. The Bengali newspaper ads are something that I find to be almost characteristic of Bengali-run businesses, further proving Hamid’s desire to appeal to people of similar cultural background to him.

Moving on from business, I asked Hamid what he likes to do on weekends and during his free time, to get a better sense of Hamid’s personal lifestyle. He replied that he loves exploring with his family. He does not care where he goes. He likes to go “wherever the mind/soul wishes.” To conclude the interview, I asked Hamid if he was involved in any community organizations. Like many Bengali immigrants I know, he was part of a regional Bangladeshi association. These regional organizations contain members that come from a specific region of Bangladesh. For example, my parents are part of the Comilla Association of New York. Hamid was part of the Shatkira Association of New York.

Demographic Shifts

Steinway’s history plays a role in Hamid’s story and understanding it allows us to better understand the decisions Hamid has made and the struggles he has faced in a changing neighborhood.

Both historically and presently, Steinway seems to have served as a commercial shopping district. Images of 32-68 Steinway street (where Dhaka Furniture is located), from 1988 and 2015 can be displayed side by side to see that the buildings stayed exactly the same, it is only the business occupying the space that changed.

Researching further into the zoning and allocation record of the land around Steinway, we can see that most of the area on Steinway street and across it is designated as a commercial zoning district, while the area surrounding it is mainly residential, depicting Steinway street as a shopping district, as seen below. The pink areas are commercial zoning districts and the yellow areas are residential zoning districts.

This information supports Hamid’s decision to set up shop on Steinway street; he had stated that the reason he started his business on Steinway street, is because Steinway was known as a shopping area, and so lots of people came here to shop, contributing to his customer base.
Furthermore, as the commercial landscape of Steinway changed over the years, a lot of the new businesses that popped up on Steinway street were furniture stores. There were four different furniture stores on the same block as Hamid’s store (one example is shown below).

These competing stores were bigger and more modern, and appealed to a much wider audience. In the case of the example presented below, the name of the store is “American Eagle Furniture Corp.” In contrast to “Dhaka Furniture”, which is named for a specific region and appeals to a a certain group of people, this furniture store has a name that suggests it caters to the general American public. This provides a lot of competition to Hamid’s business, which was explicitly stated by him during our interview. This competition is a contributing factor to his declining customer base and declining business.

Delving further into researching Steinway’s historical trends in order to better understand Hamid’s situation, I started looking at demographic data. Firstly, immigration data of Bengalis into Astoria Queens (the community district that Steinway is a part of), shows that Bengali immigration into Astoria increased from 1988 to 1997, at which point the rate of immigration started to decline, although immigration did persist. This data further made sense of Hamid’s reasoning for starting a business in Steinway. Most immigrants I know chose to settle in neighborhoods where they found people of similar cultural backgrounds. For Hamid, it made sense that he wanted to set up shop to cater to people of his own cultural background. The Bengali letters on his storefront was a clear indication of this.

During our interview, Hamid told me that although he initially started up the business in Steinway due to the high Bengali population, in recent years, the Bengali population had been declining, leading to a decrease in customer base and decrease in Hamid’s business. Indeed, according to census data, the Bengali and Asian Indian populations drastically decreased in Astoria from 2000 to 2010. As can be seen in the charts below, there were approximately 1000 less Bengali’s and 4000 less Asian Indian’s in Astoria in 2010 than in 2000.

Steinway’s historical data gives a much clearer socioeconomic context for business in the area of Steinway and Astoria Queens, which allows for a much better understand of the situation and fate of Hamid’s business.

Due to the decreasing Bengali population in Astoria, Hamid’s Bengali-centric furniture business seems like it will unfortunately eventually fail, as stated by Hamid himself. The decline of “Dhaka Furniture” exemplifies the problem that many ethnic stores and restaurants now face. Due to changing demographics in their respective neighborhoods, these ethnic stores and restaurants are finding it difficult to attract the customers that they once targeted. It is a sad reality. However, in Hamid’s case, I feel that there may be some solution. In advertising his business on the internet, on social media sites such as Facebook and twitter, he may find the customers that he once targeted with the proud Bengali letters on his storefront. Although the demographic of Steinway is changing, Hamid may be able to attract Bengali-Americans from other parts of NYC thanks to the wide reach provided by the internet and mobile applications. This is an idea that Hamid and other business owners like him may want to consider.