'Cash Mob' Heads to Gem Spa In Effort To Save E Village Mainstay

EAST VILLAGE, NY — A group working to protect small businesses and cultural institutions will flood a storied East Village bodega with cash — literally — in an effort to save it.

The group #SaveNYC is hosting a "cash mob" at Gem Spa on St. Marks Place at Second Avenue Saturday at noon. The once punk rock bodega, famous for its egg creams, is at risk of shuttering, adding to the list of St. Marks and East Village mainstays that have closed.

Its previous owner Ray Patel, who bought it in the mid-'80s, has about $100,000 in debt, the New York Times wrote in a feature late last month. The corner shop is also facing a lawsuit from its landlord and has lost its cigarette and lottery licenses.

Patel's daughter Parul Patel took over the shop in hopes of saving it, encouraging people to buy Gem Spa T-shirts and creating a vegan egg cream with an attempt at targeting the "Instagram crowd," as the Times put it.

The group hosting this weekend's "cash mob" includes Jeremiah Moss, the blogger and author behind Vanishing New York.

"Come prepared to spend some money—egg creams, pretzels, t-shirts, toothpaste!--and take your photo with a surprise work of guerrilla street art, as an acclaimed group of cultural activists and designers radically transform Gem Spa into a dystopian vision for the new St. Mark’s Place," the group wrote on Facebook.

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