Target just opened up a new location in New York’s East Village. The building that houses the store is called EVGB, which stands for “East Village’s Greatest Building,” and for the grand opening this weekend, the company erected a facade that recreated a stretch of an East Village street circa the late ’70s. This included fake tenements, a fake gypsy fortune teller, and a storefront that paid tribute to CBGB, the neighborhood’s iconic rock club that hosted bands like Blondie, the Ramones, Talking Heads, and Television before closing in 2006. Instead of “CBGB” and “OMFUG,” the text on the awning read “TRGT” and “BANDS,” and those bands came in the form of free boxes of Target-branded Band-Aids and exercise bands. A poster in the window said “The Resistance.”

Although the display was ostensibly intended as a tribute to the neighborhood’s history, many saw it as affront. Jeremiah Moss, the author of Vanishing New York, a book about the city’s gentrification, wrote that the stunt “might be the most deplorable commodification of local neighborhood culture I’ve ever witnessed.” Laura Sewell, the executive director of the East Village Community Coalition, told Fox 5 that “It was really pretty tasteless … People that we know personally were pushed out [of the neighborhood] and to find a Disney fake version of whatever it was they thought we were, it’s off.”

In response to the backlash, as The New York Times reports, Target has now issued an apology. “We often host a one-day celebration that shows the neighborhood how excited we are to be part of their community,” the company says in a statement. “We sincerely apologize if some eventgoers felt it was not the best way to capture the spirit of the neighborhood. We always appreciate guest feedback and will take it into consideration as we plan for future opening events.”

Full disclosure: I actually shop at Target. But this – as part of the new store in the East Village – spits in the face of everything CBGB stood for. pic.twitter.com/3Pz9MmsaLo

— Earl Douglas (@edouglas528) July 21, 2018