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There is nothing more emblematic of New York City baby life than the beat-up stroller. In this walking city, strollers become homes on wheels, where babies and toddlers log long hours eating, napping and playing.
Parents and caregivers thump these portable playpens and high chairs down subway steps, bump them over broken curbs, and drag them through snow and puddles of who knows what. Their carry baskets hide yesterday’s snack crumbs, crumpled art projects, splashed coffee and grit from the sandbox. They moonlight as grocery carts and extra storage, and mark the passage of time with ever-accruing layers of stain.
“Just like you would buy a minivan if you had a couple of kids, we buy huge strollers,” Katelyn Taylor, 32, said she tells her relatives in the Midwest. She regularly turns heads by toting four children around the Upper East Side in a single Uppababy Vista stroller, balancing two toddlers on the running board and two infants in the double seats. (Two are hers; two she watches for a friend.)
With that kind of use, strollers tend to get filthy. And as perhaps should be expected in this era, when web-based services are springing up to handle everything from dog walking to errand running, and especially in a city known for its entrepreneurial spirit, a fledging stroller-cleaning industry is emerging to deal with the mess.
Two very different businesses, one national, one local, are vying for a slice of this market in Manhattan. In the homegrown corner is Baby Bubbles, a mom-and-pop shop tucked into a quiet side street on the Upper East Side. The store is painted light blue and white, with a row of tiny white baby clothes hanging from a clothesline in the window. The vibe is meant to be part spa, part New England farmhouse, and to emphasize that the store cleans baby clothes, too.
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