Price Chopper/Market 32 and Tops Markets have entered into a merger agreement that nearly doubles their collective footprint in the Northeast.

Both of the grocery-store chains are based in New York and serve nearly the same areas.

Jonathan Phillips, the owner and president Phillips Hardware, said he thought that the roof began to collapse on the South Main Street barn sometime toward the end of November, and that the massive snowstorm that hit in mid-December “didn’t help,” adding, “That was probably the big factor, all that weight.”

 The owners of Pollard Disposal Services of Altamont in a note to customers  said in part, “We are writing this letter with excitement and dismay … It has come time to retire. The waste removal business is ever changing. New regulations and insurance requirements are weighing heavy on us. After looking around, we have decided to sell the waste company to Twin Bridges Waste and Recycling,”

Three months ago, the town of Guilderland asked Crossgates Mall to provide it with an income statement to show it was losing income and was in need of a nearly 50-percent cut in its tax assessment; the statement was never provided. The town has now demanded reams of financial data on what the mall charges its tenants for rent and what those tenants do in annual sales. 

“It’s like I’m the keeper of their stories,” Cindy Pollard once said of using her Home Front Café as a memory trove for veterans. “They’re important, each and every one of them … For the ground soldiers in the Pacific, it was kill or be killed. They saw such horror, they can’t talk about it … If they do, they’re back there. They smell the smells and have weeks of bad dreams.”

The now-1,200 square-foot Pakistani restaurant will be housed in the former Subway sandwich shop. The space has been under construction for some time, but now, with a permit in hand, it can open for business. Nadia Raza, Curry Patta’s owner, told The Enterprise she anticipates opening the weekend of Dec. 4.

After a rent increase following the COVID shutdown, photographer Chelsea Sylvester was forced to relocate her studio from Colonie to Altamont’s Maple Avenue, a stressful last-minute change that Sylvester nevertheless describes as a “dream come true.” 

The store had “never really grown to be a big financial producer for Phillips Hardware,” said Jonathan Phillips of his company’s Voorheesville store, which closed this week. 

Two reports from the state comptroller’s office show that, while Wall Street is doing well in the midst of the pandemic — securities-industry profits grew by 82 percent in the first half of 2020 — Main Street is not.

The coronavirus has wreaked havoc on Crossgates Mall’s balance sheet, and the Guilderland retail center is just one of a number of Pyramid-owned malls that continue to deal with the fallout from the pandemic.