An 86-year-old local goodies vendor now has a new location.
Since 1937, the longtime Lower East Side holdout Economy Candy has been slinging treats from its Rivington Street storefront — and now will continue the tradition from within the halls of its second-ever location at Chelsea Market.
“Economy Candy was born out of the Great Depression and our family has delighted in bringing sweetness and joy to our customers over the past [85-plus] years, across three generations, in good times and bad,” third-generation Economy Candy co-owner Skye Greenfield Cohen told The Post of the new store branch. “Now, exiting the pandemic and the aftermath of that, spreading joy to our New York neighbors is more important than ever. We are so excited to have found a home away from home at Chelsea Market, which is undoubtedly imbued with the same ‘magic’ you’ll find at our Lower East Side Flagship shop.”
A significant portion of the original location’s magic, however, comes from the feeling of entering a pocket of Manhattan that has somehow remained untouched despite the passage of time. In the decades it took to become “New York City’s oldest retail candy store,” as Economy Candy claims to be, the store has become charmingly stuck in another era — one in which selling wrapped desserts didn’t seem like a surprising way to make rent on one of downtown’s hipper blocks.
Indeed, the store has become iconic but not strayed far from its humble beginnings as a “shoe and hat repair shop which had a push cart outside that sold candy,” as Economy Candy’s website tells it. “When the Depression hit in the 30s the candy cart started bringing in more business than the shoe store and in 1937 the business transformed into Economy Candy.”
The new Chelsea Market extension, called A Taste of Economy Candy, will be open seven days a week from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. at 75 Ninth Ave. between 15th and 16th streets.
Ex-Brit turned Manhattan resident since 2008.