Where There Is A Need, Fill It

Next thing you know, the EDC will want to build a mall there, but for now, smart entrepreneurs step in:

Recently, a small jewelry store opened at 19-10 Hazen Street in the East Elmhurst section of Queens, a location that gets a highly specific type of traffic, being right next to the bridge that leads to Rikers Island.

One might question the wisdom of putting a jewelry store so close to one of the world’s largest penal colonies. But the owners of the shop — Michael’s Gold Market (“The Leader in Extravagant Jewelry Design”) — selected the location with care, said a man who sat in the shop last week behind bulletproof glass.

“We get inmates’ relatives coming for visiting hours, and they shop here, especially if they have to wait around a while,” said the man, who refused to give his name but said that he and his brother owned the shop. “Our best customers are corrections officers. They cash their paychecks right there and come here.”

He pointed to the adjacent business: a check-cashing outlet that offers Western Union, with special rates for wiring money into Rikers Island, which on any given day has about 12,000 inmates, a staff of about 9,000 correction officers on the job and an average of 1,500 visitors.

Another local entrepreneur, Christopher Samolis, 26, of Astoria, operates a food truck parked daily near the Rikers bridge, and he also offers many insights about the conditions under which a businessman operates just outside the largest prison in the city.

“They were smart to open the jewelry store,” Mr. Samolis said. “You really have to have a niche to survive in this location, and they have it.”

“This location” would be where 19th Avenue meets Hazen Street, the northern end of which turns into the Rikers Island Bridge, just west of La Guardia Airport. Mr. Samolis has his niche. He is the only food vendor at the entrance to the jail, where visitors can spend all day trying to get in to see an inmate.

“The higher the crime rate, the better off I do,” said Mr. Samolis, as he hustled, with his brother Michael, 19, to provide hot dogs to customers who had just come off the Q100 Limited bus that runs a loop from the jail to Queensboro Plaza. There are also privately operated vans that shuttle visitors on and off Rikers Island for a $2 fare each way.

Location Scout: Rikers Island.