God’s Garage

“You are a kind of utopia, / you know. God’s garage,” Joshua Bennett opens the poem “Owed to the 99 Cent Store” conjuring the many possibilities and contradictions of the dollar store. It’s a place of abundance and excess, the kind that leaves one full but perhaps not well nourished. He points to the enduring draw of these spaces and their “sweet ecology,” how their alluring price point makes small joys possible. The siren call of these stores is especially audible to those who don’t have the spending power to shop in other places, or don’t have a local supermarket or hardware store.

There are more 99 cent stores in New York City than Walgreens (227), Dunkin’s (620), Starbucks (316), and McDonald’s (191) combined. Discount stores represent a ubiquitous but often invisible part of the urban landscape. They’re everywhere and nowhere. New stores are popping up in new developments, and major dollar store chains are increasing their presence in the city. To the urban planner, dollar stores are undesirable uses, typically concentrated in low-income Black and brown neighborhoods. To the economist, the popularity of low-cost stores is a direct response to growing financial precarity, preying on an expanding underclass. To the climate advocate, they’re spaces that generate waste through the steady import of low-cost plastic products. To the optimist, these stores fill a gap in the retail space and allow for affordable home improvement and creativity.

And then there is our personal perspective. Growing up, we both spent time in 99 cent stores — Daphne growing up in central Brooklyn and Gloria in the suburbs of the Bay Area as an immigrant from Hong Kong. These stores were part of our retail experience, where we shopped for cleaning and school supplies. But beyond this, what we knew about them was limited to the formal critique of these places as undesirable. We wanted to demystify the role these stores play in the city, how they function as businesses, and what they mean in the New York City retail landscape.

The dollar store’s ancestors date back to the variety and general stores of the 19th and early 20th centuries. The United States’ westward colonial expansion created new communities in areas with limited access to retail stores. The general store became a one-stop shop in rural towns: a post and telegram office, a grocery store, a pharmacy, and haberdashery all at once. As these small towns grew, general stores developed into department stores, drugstores, and other types of retail.

Dollar General, one of the largest and most profitable discount chains in the US, is considered the country’s first dollar store. The financial precarity of the Great Depression paved the way for their new retail model. Struggling retailers and manufacturers were looking for opportunities to offload merchandise at steep discounts. Beginning in 1939, J.L. Turner and Son, a wholesale and retail business in Scottsville, Kentucky, purchased these goods and then sold them to customers at low prices. Over time, the dollar store model evolved from selling discounted unsold inventory from other stores to working directly with manufacturers to create products that sold for a dollar or less.

Family Dollar started in North Carolina, Dollar Tree in Virginia, and Fred’s in Mississippi. What began as a regional phenomenon has become the fastest-growing retailer in the country. Seventy-five percent of Americans now live within five miles of a Dollar General. The passage of the Consumer Goods Pricing Act (CGPA) of 1975 paved the way for more dollar store chains and big box stores. Previously, manufacturers were able to set a minimum price for the sale of goods, blocking discount sellers from offering products at lower prices. Once the CGPA was passed, stores like Walmart and Dollar General rapidly expanded across the country, luring customers with much lower price tags than local retailers. Much like the economic precarity of the Great Depression, the Great Recession and the subprime mortgage crisis laid the groundwork for a boom in chain discount stores. Between 2011 and 2018, the number of Dollar General and Dollar Tree locations increased by fifty percent, from approximately 20,000 to 30,000. This exponential growth and investment in thousands of new storefronts relied on unending poverty. “Essentially what the dollar stores are betting on in a large way is that we are going to have a permanent underclass in America,” says former VP of Retail Intelligence at Cushman & Wakefield Garrick Brown in a 2017 Bloomberg Businessweek article on Dollar General’s expansion in rural America.

In New York City, 17 of 195 total Neighborhood Tabulation Areas (NTAs) have 20 or more 99 cent stores. (NTAs are aggregations of census tracts that roughly align with NYC neighborhood boundaries.) Fifteen of those NTAs are majority Black, Latinx, or Asian. Many of these same neighborhoods are also rated as having high or moderate supermarket needs. Nationwide, dollar stores are now beginning to carry fresh food items, in an attempt to both address the criticism and capitalize on the fact that they’re disproportionately located in food deserts or food swamps, areas that have a high concentration of fast food restaurants. In 2021, the industry magazine Progressive Grocer named Dollar General the retailer of the year. That year, 77 percent of Dollar General’s business was in consumables, which included food goods.

Like all major chains, national dollar stores are consistent in their branding and messaging. The word “dollar” features prominently in three of the major national chains. Dollar Tree, Family Dollar, and Dollar General stores feature bright, simple signs, with sans-serif fonts. While the national landscape of dollar stores is overwhelmingly made up of these chains, in NYC they are largely independently owned small businesses.

The inconsistent naming conventions of 99 cent stores make it hard to put together a definitive list of their locations in New York City. Using a business search engine, we identified roughly 1,359 New York City businesses as dollar stores in 2021. 87 percent of dollar stores were privately-owned small businesses. The remaining 13 percent were one of the major dollar store chains: Family Dollar, Dollar General, Dollar Tree, or Five Below.

Independent 99 cent stores in New York City have distinctive signage that sets them apart from other businesses, featuring bright colors, red or silver backgrounds with large, illuminated, 3D lettering that signals the affordable bounty that awaits the shopper. “Super Deal Outlet,” “City 99 Cents Store,” “Crazy Deals,” “99 Cents Papa,” “Dollar Outlet,” and “108 Discount & Gift Store.” In the way that a bodega owner must distinguish their store from the bodega across the street or down the block, so too must dollar store owners find a unique name and branding to stand out in a busy marketplace.

Dollar store storefronts and interior layouts highlight the contrast between small businesses and major chains. While chain dollar stores have set layouts and merchandise, mom-and-pop stores tend to have more variety and flexibility. 99 cent stores are often run by immigrant business owners; they can provide a pathway for secure jobs and upward mobility that’s less physically taxing than owning and operating a restaurant or working in a factory. Immigrant dollar store owners often stock products in their stores that connect them to their homeland. In culturally hyperdiverse New York City, 99 cent business owners can curate the items they stock to cater to their neighborhood’s residents. A dollar store in Sunset Park might carry Asian-style slippers and cookware, while a dollar store in central Brooklyn might carry Eco hairstyling gel and coconut milk.

Compared to mom-and-pop discount stores, chain discount stores lean heavily on creating a standardized brand and operational model that appeals to lower-income customers’ bargain hunting desires. On the real estate section of its website in 2022, Dollar Tree signaled to potential partners the amount of space (10,000 – 12,000 square feet) and socioeconomic markers (target median household income of $30,000 – $60,000; compared to 2021 US median household income of $70,784) that are practical for a Dollar Tree or Family Dollar location (these guidelines have recently changed).

Mom-and-pop discount stores across the five boroughs are less uniform. Objects are often stacked floor to ceiling. Recovering from an overwhelming first impression, one can start to divine an organized system of display. Even without the streamlined logistic operations of chain stores, discount store owners still follow some basic parameters. A quick survey of discount store layout offerings shows a similar formula to chain discount stores, utilizing square footage and maximizing shelf space. One dollar store supplier describes their philosophy: “Your dollar store shelves should be more than just stocked; they should be over-stocked. When customers enter a dollar store, they want to immediately sense that the store is crammed full of treasures.”

The bags of Ricola cough drops at the Dollar Tree in Greenwood Heights are smaller than the standard size you’ll find at a drugstore. Is the dollar price tag really a bargain if you compare the unit cost per cough drop? At a 99 cent store on Cortelyou Road in Ditmas Park, a brand of soap produced in India and distributed by a company in Trinidad sits next to brands wrapped in Russian and Polish text, reflecting the many communities around Central Brooklyn. How do discount store owners source their products and are there items specifically packaged for dollar stores? Various family and immigrant-run wholesale businesses supply discount stores, forming an even wider network. These wholesale companies sell bulk merchandise including home goods, games, electronics, hardware, and vitamins. They are in New York City neighborhoods like Sunset Park, Long Island City, and Maspeth. On the corner of Flushing and Metropolitan Avenue in Maspeth is a warehouse complex — AA Wholesale Center — with signs for a number of small wholesale companies. Under the generic English names are more clarifying Chinese names describing the type of products they sell, and many include the text “99 cent” in Chinese. On the websites of national wholesalers like Bargain Wholesale, common household items from snacks to ibuprofen, tongs to party hats, dog treats to basketballs, can be ordered in individual units and by cases.

Filmmaker Jessica Kingdon traveled to the world’s largest wholesale market Yiwu International Trade Market in Zhejiang, China, to explore the everyday life of the sellers behind the stores. In her short documentary Commodity City, images of people enveloped by a large amount of one type of product scroll across the screen. One stall’s walls are covered in pens, another stall is filled with twinkling Christmas lights on plastic Christmas trees, and another is abundant with fuzzy cartoon-eyed dog and cat backpacks. The same images conjure affordability and abundance, excess and waste. All at once, discount stores can fill the gaps left by inequitable planning policies, connect immigrants to home, and perpetuate the negative impacts of consumerism and cheap manufacturing leading to waste, pollution, and unsafe labor practices.

These 99 cent stores also function as an amalgamation of numerous retail types that have experienced rapid decline or that never existed in certain communities to begin with: the hardware store, the hobby/craft store, and the grocery store. While the pandemic caused a surge in hardware store sales, much of that growth has since stalled. Craft stores, including major chains like Michael’s and Joann’s, face stiff competition from Amazon’s frictionless online shopping experience. While Amazon has made it possible to get crafting or hardware supplies delivered in a matter of days or hours, the ability to immediately follow one’s creative whims or make unexpected home repairs relies on local retail. Dollar stores have filled in the gap, carrying everything from hammers and electrical tape, to sewing thread and popsicle sticks.

Emblems of economic systems that fail low-income communities, 99 cent stores are also sites of creativity. A Google search of “dollar store DIY” videos, yields over seven million videos of people transforming 99 cent products into new things. Words like “decor,” “glam,” “aesthetic,” and “makeover” are sprinkled throughout the results. Luxury, or its approximation, is accessible to all. Small plastic baskets are transformed into bejeweled candle holders, plastic beads and LED lights become a chandelier, and artificial plants are artfully arranged in ceramic pots to bring verdancy to even the drabbest bathrooms. While the dollar store model targets low-income households, what’s striking about many of these DIY videos is that they primarily feature women displaying their alchemic skills in palatial suburban homes.

At the end of 2022, CNBC reported on a new target audience for discount stores: “inflation-weary” middle-class shoppers. Major discount chains have been experimenting with store redesigns to attract more affluent clientele. Dollar General recently launched Popshelf, a higher-end discount store looking to attract consumers that make between $50,000 and $125,000. The store’s color palette is a mix of pastel purples and bold fonts with clean white shelves, a brighter and seemingly less chaotic retail environment than regular Dollar General stores. The fresh and clean layout is by design. Jeff Owen, COO of Dollar General, maintains that the goal of these elevated discount stores is “to engage customers by offering a fun, affordable and differentiated treasure hunt experience, delivered through… a unique in-store experience.” Aesthetics play a critical role in attracting middle-class customers that may not typically be drawn to discount stores. Dollar General plans to open 1,000 Popshelf stores by 2025. While Dollar Store chains have begun to modify their financial models, communities across the country are beginning to mobilize against their omnipresence in predominantly Black, low-income, and rural areas. In 2018, the Tulsa City Council passed one of the first ordinances in the county to limit the opening of new dollar stores. The ordinance also included provisions to encourage the development of new grocery stores. Nationwide, at least 54 cities and towns have now passed restrictions or full bans on dollar stores.

Locally, independent dollar stores have started to feel the pressure of a growing wave of national chains opening in the city. As far back as 2017, the New York Times reported on mom-and-pop dollar store owners struggling to compete with national chains like Dollar General and Dollar Tree steadily increasing their footprint in the city. Small business owners are still recovering from the pandemic, and some were never able to return. After trying to make sense of dollar stores, our curiosity and ambivalence about these often invisible places have only deepened. They add a complicated richness to New York City’s fabric. Will the loss of mom-and-pop 99 cent stores make the city only poorer?