Ridgewood pharmacy’s closing a bittersweet pill
NOVEMBER 13, 2014 LAST UPDATED: THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2014, 5:02 PM
BY LAURA HERZOG
STAFF WRITER |
THE RIDGEWOOD NEWS
It hit people fast, and hard, coming with tears in some cases.
The news was that Harding Pharmacy and Liquors would be closing, possibly this Sunday — and taking with it the friendliness and cute seasonal window displays that customers and residents driving by have come to take for granted.
That, plus decades of Ridgewood history that it built solidly on the corner of East Ridgewood and North Maple avenues.
“I saw [the owner] Myron’s sign that said the store was closing, I just got a little welled up,” said resident Anne Marie Kleiman, who has been going to Harding since 1999. “I gave him a hug.”
That hug has a history: Kleiman recalled pharmacist and 32-year owner Myron Lesh’s congratulatory hug after she became pregnant, and his insistence that she call him and his wife at home any time, night or day, if she needed anything – prescriptions, diapers, whatever. Later, Harding’s clerk became Kleiman’s first babysitter.
“The grandparent of our friend, who is in her 90s now, was a friend of one of Myron’s wife’s aunts,” Kleiman said with a laugh. “They came referred to us from that generation. They came and welcomed us as if we were members of that generation, as well.”
Another sad resident was Kathleen McCormack, whose family has lived in the village since the 1960s.
https://www.northjersey.com/news/business/ridgewood-pharmacy-s-closing-a-bittersweet-pill-1.1133124
Among the other positives of this place, was the ability to know that you always had a parking spot in their lot. No other pharmacy has that feature.
And thanks to the irresponsible scumbag whom sued the owner because it wasn’t his fault the he was a drug addict ……..