i am deeply sadden by the fact that the store that was the heart of the vs scene in new york city, neutral ground, is closing down! on their web site the owners have left a statement to its customers stating:



"it is a dark time for the rebellion.

we simply cannot afford to keep neutral ground open any longer.



this has been an incredibly painful realization for all of us, and we have spent a lot of sleepless nights trying to figure out a way to make the store work, strictly on a business level. we had a lot of ideas, and unfortunately none of them panned out as we needed them to. on a personal level, the decision to close the store was something that i've struggled with for months, and the period when i realized that with all of the factors working against us that i wasn't able to keep it open was one of the more difficult periods of my life as i basically grew up at neutral ground. i will miss it and each of you tremendously.



take care and happy gaming,

matt blank"

this is sad news for me since this location was my main source of vs tournament action. it is in this store i was introduce to game of vs which i quickly feel in love with. i have made many many friends at neutral ground and im sadden that i have to face the reality that keeping in contact with many of them would be difficult with out convenient place for all of to socialize and flip some cards. with this sudden closing thanks to the freakin economy, my in person vs playing options are limited. i thank god that there is yet one other hobby league in new york remaining that supports vs. but the location of that hobby league (jim hanley's universe in staten island, ny) may be to far out of reach for some. (such as my self with a 2 1/2 hr trip to the store in staten island compare to a 1/2 hour trip to neutral ground)i pray this closing doesnt completely kill the vs scene in ny,

so far jim hanley's universe is the predominate hobby league representing the vs scene in ny after the neutral ground closure. our other option is to reset up the hobby league at kings games but we all know how they handle the respect of vs players from the last big vs event which was mega weekend ny. so kings games is a last resort for many after such horrible hosting at the mw. i hope this doesnt happen to other brick and mortor shops across the country because of this economy. because if this closure of the number 1 gaming store in nyc can easily happen then it can happen to any of the other littler mom and pop stores.

this is a sad sad day for me.....

caps lock hurt my eyes.

bummer tho.

fixed it for ya! lol

Sad Panda...

There's always NJ.

CC

You're welcome to come and join us at our HL...
... of course, that's what, a 9 hour drive for you?

Bummer news one way or another

Neutral Ground was my favorite hobby league in the past, and partly inspired me to start my own Hobby League on Staten Island. This is very sad news indeed.

I'm sorry to hear the bad news ;( You can always play vs with upstate too ...

I do fondly remember the X-Men and Legion pre-release events at Neutral Ground, and they will be missed.

I have been to Neutral Grounds several times... it was a good store, and a gaming store known throughout the US. I'm sad they were not able to make it profitable; it really is tough for "brick and mortar" stores to justify existence anymore... I know most stores that don't keep the live store open as an outlet for buying cheap singles to sell online don't make it.

*smack!*

This smack brought to you by all the people who ever considered playing vs at King's Games again.

Seriously. They [King's Games] don't ever deserve our business again after what they've done to the game.

Yeah, I'm not likely to go back after MWNY :angry:

Wow. See what happens when I complain about a store? Done.

In all seriousness, this is rough. It looks like if Team Suck wants to play in pre-releases, we're left with Hanley's, which is a bit of a trip in our eyes.

Another nail in the proverbial coffin for me. Dang.

Wow. The future of gaming is bleak indeed. I had my highs and lows with NG but always appreciated that it existed as a haven for gamers. With no NG, a semi-ban against Kings, and a trek out to Jim Hanley's, New York pound for pound might be the least supportive major city for gaming. Thoughts?

I think more than anything is that we're in Magic's thrashing grounds; WotC has dominance here. It's exactly like how VS is doing its best over in SoCal; UDE's turf is over there.

So, is it closed today or is there a final day?