Last Kmart store in Manhattan goes dark — without much notice

Kmart has closed the doors of its nearly 25-year-old location in Manhattan.

The store, on Broadway at Astor Place, closed on Sunday, July 11.  It was Kmart’s only remaining location in Manhattan after the struggling discounter closed its store at Penn Plaza in early 2020.

Employees learned that the Astor Place outpost, which opened in November 1996, would be closing just days before it went dark, according to the East Village blog EV Grieve.

The closings comes as Kmart and Sears owner Transformco, which bought bankrupt Sears Holdings Corp., has been steadily closing stores nationwide. By some accounts, there are less than 40 Kmarts still open. 

With the closing of the Astor Place outpost, Kmart is down to only two locations in New York City, with both in the Bronx.