Jen Scott looked out from inside her specialty wine shop on Summer Street last week — a couple of blocks from South Station — and saw a smattering of pedestrians passing by, not the parade of individuals in business suits and delivery uniforms who walked this stretch of road prior to the pandemic.
“There was a crazy amount of traffic in downtown, you couldn't walk down the street without crowds of people, even in the morning, you know, just people coming out of South Station,” said Scott. “It was like a sea of people that it was hard to cut across if you were going in the opposite direction.”
In those days, hundreds of customers stopped by Common Vines for a bottle of Napa Valley red or a rare French wine or even a case by day’s end. Now, Scott — who opened her shop in 2017— considers herself lucky if she gets 10 customers a day.
“And most of those are grabbing like a beer out of the fridge.”
For Scott, and a dozen or more mainly mom and pop businesses in this once bustling section of downtown Boston, winter has set in on Summer Street.
“Within a one to two block radius here, there are at least 12 businesses that have closed,” Scott told GBH News.
Scott details the damage wrought on small businesses by the pandemic in the neighborhood where she both lives and works. “One of them, a couple of blocks up, is the Good Life [restaurant], like they've been there forever. The landlord wouldn't work with them and they just had to shut down and they're not ever going to open again," she said. "Al Capone's [pizza] is right there across the street. They got shut down .... Seraphina [restaurant], which, you know, that's not necessarily small business. It's more of a chain, but like even something like that, I mean, they're shut down permanently.”
With the closures, the sounds of downtown hustle and bustle — impatient drivers honking horns, deli countermen shouting “Who’s next?,” street conversations and loud arguments — have mostly receded into the background on Summer Street.
“Sirens as well,” said U.S. postman, Don Penelli. “It’s a little easier on my ears.” Penelli has seen more mail returned to sender and forwarded letters over the last year than at any time since he started delivering in this area 21 years ago.
“It’s a little eerie,” and he says he is retiring just in time.
Penelli’s route takes him pass the Good Life, an ironic name for an iconic bar-restaurant, now boarded up like a remnant from a riot. He also delivered mail at the GNC store, now closed, as is the falafel place across the street.
Wafting up Summer there is still the unmistakable aroma of tobacco. The Blue Moon Smoke Shop opened four months ago in one of the abandoned spaces at greatly reduced rent. But a manager here — who requested anonymity so as not to upset his boss — says sales still have not come easy.
“It was trash here the last two months.” But he is hopeful.
“It kinda went down around election time and then it's been coming back up recently and surprisingly better about the last couple of weeks,” he says. As far as spring arriving on Summer Street? “I'm hoping it’s better. Much better!”
Three thousand people occupied the office tower at 100 Summer Street before the pandemic, which is why Jen Scott says she located her wine shop on the first floor. In 2018, Common Vines was named the Best of Boston. The foot traffic was “amazing” said Scott. Now, fewer than 80 people work out of this building in the heart of downtown. Scott is hanging on to Common Vines by a thread by delivering to loyal customers and conducting on-line courses on the art of wine-tasting. Her landlord, she says, has also been sympathetic. But her business across the street, a restaurant and wine bar called Taste is permanently closed. The overseas landlord was a lot less sympathetic and in the evenings the area has resembled a ghost town.
“There is literally not an option to be open. There is no one here, like no one," she said. "And that's why we're closed over at our wine bar too.”
One pedestrian said he's watched the neighborhood empty out. Hector – who asked that GBH not use his last name — said he used to drop by Scott's restaurant from time to time. He is an auditor and works in the seven-story building across the road. Like everywhere else in the downtown area, this former prime location now has an occupancy rate of less than 5 percent, according to city data.
“It's very different from like a year and a half ago, there were a lot of people in the office,” Hector said. "Like, twenty-five on a daily basis and now maybe two or three.”
It’s a lonely town, but some are making the best of it.
At Colonial Shoe Repair at 101 Summer Street, the cobbler, Greg Papazian, is young but carrying on an old school craft. His shop is full of shoes queued up for repair, though fewer than in past years.
“A lot different, you know. I do my best," he said. His customers still know where to find him. "I've been selected Best of Boston. So, when people come in one, two days, a week or whatever, they can get in, so they drop off their shoes or boots. We fix 'em.”
Colonial Shoe Repair is one of the few surviving businesses in the area that is not a Wendy’s, Starbucks or Taco Bell.
Common Vines is another. But Scott says she may need government assistance to continue.
“This business could really use help with working capital and it hasn't been able to get any,” she said.
Her company, she says, received a loan from the federal Paycheck Protestion Program, but it was not enough, and wine stores do not qualify for financial assistance from the Massachusetts Growth Capital Corporation, which so far has extended $602 million in direct financial support to nearly 14,000 businesses statewide.
But Scott says she has not given up. She is looking through the fine details of President Biden's new $1.9 trillion relief package and hopes she qualifies for assistance.
At the cusp of spring on Summer Street, Jen Scott says she is hoping for a new beginning.
