Arthur’s reopens
Community hub with over 200 years of history now a 21st-century catchall shop
The Stockade’s centuries-old community hub features 21stcentury innovations.
After months of renovations, planning, tinkering and recipe-tasting, Thursday was a cakewalk.
“This is the least stressed I’ve been in a month-in-a-half,” said Haley Whalen, owner of Arthur’s Market.
For more than 200 years, the Colonial-era structure has occupied a central perch on North Ferry Street. Now following a brief closure, Whalen wants to restore Arthur’s Market as the beating heart of the city’s Stockade neighborhood.
Arthur’s formally opened on Thursday. Patrons filtered in on a cold winter evening, all socially-distanced, maskclad and preregistered through an online booking system, regulations that will be in effect until next Wednesday.
While unconventional, the pandemic-era launch is just another historical highlight for a building that was built
in 1795.
Its resurrection marks a long time coming not only for Whalen, but also the neighborhood, which lacks a full-service grocery store.
“It’s a blessing,” said James Taft, clutching a bag with two cookies, a roast turkey cheddar sandwich and a postcard. “There’s nothing down here.”
The location has long served as a community hub, whether under the Arthur’s banner or another namesake.
The building went through a series of occupants, most recently Richard Genest, who ran a small grocery store from 2013 until early 2019.
But its namesake, Arthur Polachek, a popular figure who opened shop in the early 1950s and ran it for years, is the one most synonymous with the business.
“People who live in the neighborhood have incredibly fond memories of him and his family, which has been really very, very fun for me to hear and become more familiar with,” Whalen said.
That includes figures like the butcher who carved meat on Thursdays.
Polachek’s son, Peter, later ran the business before his death in 2009.
“The most common thread in everybody’s memories and conversations about what was here is that it was a community space,” Whalen said.
While nostalgic, Whalen acknowledges survival cannot coast on sepiatoned memories alone and the days of a corner store serving as a onestop shop are over.
Consumer preferences have shifted, and the market needs to strike the right balance between homage to the past and what the community will support, said Whalen, who has a background in digital food and hospitality branding, experience she has drawn from in creating a business model designed to ensure a small neighborhood can thrive in the 21st century.
Whalen has cultivated a blend of staples like cereal and snacks alongside take-and-bake meals and high-quality food and gift items.
A central component is facilitating a community experience, the type of place where patrons swing by the in-house cafe as a regular part of their routines, perhaps making new friends in the process.
“Hopefully we can carry on that legacy in what we’re doing here,” Whalen said. “And hopefully it means neighbors know each other better.”
Among the hot items on opening day were the custom-made dog treats staff distributed through the take-out window.
Whalen has spent the past two years making structural repairs on the 3,672-square foot building, including interior upgrades and painting the outside, changes that retain the building’s historic character.
The revamped interior is spacious, with exposed brick walls and nods to the past, including the refurbished wooden counter and bakery case, as well as postcards and paintings illustrating the venue’s heyday.
Whalen and husband Harry Whalen, co-founder of nearby Great Flats Brewing, have lived in the neighborhood since February 2016.
While she toyed with the idea of launching her own business, she didn’t want to do so until later in life.
Opportunity rang during her nocturnal dogwalking forays around the neighborhood and the business’ “for sale” sign called out to her.
“My imagination just kind of ran away with me,” Whalen said. “I thought of all the things that I could imagine enjoying in the space and essentially the temptation overcame me.”
Come spring, Whalen will open up the backyard patio, a vantage point offering view of historic homes, and one she hopes will help people coming back.
Former Stockade resident Kaylee May has watched her friend chip away at the project.
While she has since relocated to Troy, she sees Arthur’s Market as a magnet that will pull her back in.
“It just makes it whole,” May said.
Whalen acknowledges she’s now responsible for a landmark with a deep legacy.
“I think people are excited we’re carrying that on and I certainly hope we can live up to those expectations because I know that people do have a lot of hopes and dreams for this place.”