the old space
The large room was packed with cardboard boxes filled with vintage magazines--movie magazines, girlie magazines--and comic books. The walls were covered with posters and magazines, faces from the past. I loved going up there and wading through the ephemera. (I love an odd second-story business, climbing the murky staircase to what feels like a secret spot above the city crowd.)
On a recent trip, I was met with a sign that said, "We moved." I looked up. The place has been cleared out, white-washed, the ceiling hung with cold track lighting. Imagine the wonderful nail salon to come!
I walked to the new address, a basement spot on 6th Avenue, next to Bigelow's drugstore. You walk down now, not up, into a much smaller room.
the new spot
I know I'm supposed be grateful that they were able to find a new space, and I am. Still, everything that makes this city interesting, if it's not vanishing completely, keeps getting crammed into ever smaller spaces, pushed to the margins, relegated to basements.
So I'm grateful, but bitter.
I liked that big room filled with those super-saturated mid-century colors, where you got a good feeling that expanded your insides, and where you could buy a magazine or a comic book and read it downstairs while enjoying a cup of coffee and cruller at the Donut Pub.
Previously:
Time Machine
Donut Pub
7 comments:
For what it's worth, the New York Times did an article on this store a few years ago that really captures what makes it special. Glad to know this store continues, even if in a smaller space (and in another variation of the several related names Roger's used over the years...)
(Plus, there's something about the idea of going downstairs to the shop that strikes a nostalgic chord. Maybe it's invoking a memory of the erstwhile basement location that Gallagher's Paper Collectibles used to have way back when...)
Glad to hear that they moved! I went past on the bus the other day and saw that the space was cleared. Usually I would be shocked by something like this, but after seeing so much of this over the last decade it hardly surprised me. The few times I went in there over the last year or so, I knew it was only a matter of time before they were gone. Glad they found a new location. Can't wait to see what kind of vapid culture killing entity will arrive in the old space.
On the other hand, in their new location I might actually notice them when I walk by, whereas I am sure only people who knew they were there went in before.
please include the locations when something vanishes. was this east or west 14st? i spent much time there but never noticed the shop.
Thanks for pointing out this little gem. I spend much time in the area so will make sure to visit this "vanishing" spot soon
Just discovered them. So nice.
I went to the old shop once on a trip to New York, it was a great little shop and I got some gems there, it is a shame that it moved as i felt I was stepping into New York history. I'm quite sad that I'll never see that dusty old comic shop again.
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