PULP Finds Local Buyer: “Miracle on 14th Street”
The sign went up Saturday morning at PULP: “It’s a ‘Miracle on 14th Street!’ ” A local businessman is purchasing PULP and the store will stay open. (Luis Gomez Photos)
From Matty Rhoades
Less than three weeks after the owner of PULP announced the store would close November 23, a new sign went up Saturday morning on the door of the 14th Street gift store:
“It’s a ‘Miracle on 14th Street!’ Thank you all for your good energy! We’re staying open under local ownership. Stay tuned for details!”
According to store staff, the owner is a “local businessman from the metro area.” Bev Jones, store manager, said she got the good news Friday evening from the current owner, “who said to change the signs, we have a buyer.”
When the store’s thought-to-be demise was announced September 27, the current owner of PULP was in the process of selling to new owners, but the business deal fell through. The original owner, Ron Henderson, died in February 2009. PULP also had a Provincetown, Massachusetts, store for several years as well as a Capitol Hill location.
The gift and card shop at 1803 14th Street NW carries a variety of gifts, cards, and children’s books and toys.
PULP is at 14th and S Streets NW. (Luis Gomez Photos)
It has been a tough fall for a number of the locally owned retail and food establishments on the 14th Street corridor.
The owner of 1409 Playbill Cafe announced he would move to find a more affordable space. The store joins several other 14th Street NW stores that have closed in the past year, including Garden District, El Paraiso (which has another location in Alexandria), Ruff ‘& Ready furnishings (owner looking for a new location) and go mama go!
PULP was one of the stores that opened on the 14th Street corridor in the early part of last decade as the retail strip was beginning to transform to meet the needs of a rapidly gentrifying neighborhood. Together with Home Rule, go mama go! and Garden District (when it was located at the Standard BBQ location), the four stores formed a mini shopping block.
