THE BIG LIE ABOUT THE ORGANIZATIONS THAT REPRESENT SMALL BUSINESSES IN NEW YORK.
Walk a few blocks in any borough and you start wondering something nobody ever asks out loud: who actually speaks for New York’s small businesses?
Not the idea of “small business,” the real ones. The people running on fumes. The storefronts held together by family labor. The micro-shops that don’t have time for panels, programs, or newsletters because they’re trying to survive another unpredictable week.
If most of these owners can’t name a single organization that claims to represent them, is that a gap in outreach… or a gap in reality? If the loudest voices in the room look nothing like the people keeping the city’s commercial strips alive, what does that say about the room? And if over 85–90 percent of operators are never surveyed, never present, never part of the conversation, then what exactly are we calling “representation”?
Maybe the issue isn’t who’s talking.
Maybe it’s who isn’t.
THE DOMINICANS DIDN’T JUST CHANGE NYC FOODTHEY TURNED THE WHOLE CITY INTO ONE BIG CAJA CHINA
Dominicans didn’t “influence” New York. They rebuilt its appetite, rewired its flavor logic, and dragged this city out of the beige-bowl era by force.
I didn’t fall in love with Dominican food through a dish. I fell in love through a room. Fifteen years ago I walked into a spot in Washington Heights and the whole place felt alive in a way New York rarely lets itself be anymore. Music too loud, jokes flying, half the room arguing about baseball, and a waitress who called me “papi” before deciding whether I deserved a table. That energy hooked me. The food sealed it. Dominican food isn’t a meal. It’s a vibe, a community, a pulse.
