For many years (don't ask me how many) 6th Avenue between 11th and 13th Streets has supported two stationery stores. As a lover of stationery stores in a digitizing and gentrifying world, I consider this a small miracle. And now--miracle over.
Reader Simone sent in this photo of Downtown Stationers -- everything must go, they're out of business.
That leaves the great Stevdan Stationers, one block south. For now.
Gentrification: A travesty of any concept involving the improvement and restoration of a community or of society.
ReplyDeleteAs far back as the fifties, there was a stationary store on the corner of 11th and Avenue of the Americas. Kids from PS 41 used to go there to buy supplies---- when they entered third grade, they would learn to write script with a fountain pen, and this was the store to get the right stuff.
ReplyDeleteI think on the site where "Downtown Stationers" is located, there was a typewriter sales and repair store. Yes. Typewriters. I think the family that owned it was called Maccario.
Feels very bleak to lose these local places that made up unique neighborhoods.
This is too bad. I was thinking about these stationers recently while shopping for Christmas cards. There are so few card stores left in the city, and the stationary stores have dwindled as well, along with the gift and home goods stores that had unique and interesting items along with cards for every occasion. It's sad.
ReplyDeleteMy favorite stationary store in the city was the one next door to Cinema Village. They had the best pens. Remember when you posted that they closed in 2014. Yes I noticed that many of them around the city are now closed. Is the one by NYU still open? That was a good one as well.
ReplyDeleteMikema Reape—The stationary by the former Cinema Village was still there as of summer 2016. Haven't been downtown lately—but they were there still in August.
ReplyDeleteThe other Stationary store on the corner near 4th I think, near NYU also, was still there as of summer 2016.
Hope this is still the case.
Thanks so much for the update zuzuzpetals.
ReplyDeleteI just saw that Stevdan closed and this is a real loss for New York because they were simply a staple to everyone below 14th Street. You could go there and find things that you couldn't get in the big box stores like Staples, and in small quantities of things like colored file folders, writing pads, and more, without having to purchase a big box of them like you do in big box stores. Bye bye to the heart of soul of Manhattan as it disappears before our eyes, only to be replaced by tall steel and glass buildings without soul.
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