A young clerk handed Ali Annunziato, a high school gym teacher in East Flatbush, a set of butterfly-shaped paper cutouts. “Wow!” exclaimed Ms. Annunziato. “That’s exactly what I was looking for!” The excited teacher, visiting the store for the first time, said she would use the cutouts for decorating one of her bulletin boards. “They have literally everything I was going to buy on Amazon in one little shop,” Ms. Annunziato said, though she later noted that her bill was more expensive than what she would have paid online. According to Francis Teri, the store owner and a Midwood native, Amazon — and online ordering in general — is why most teaching supply stores have closed in recent years.

Source: New York Times September 13, 2018 16:18 UTC