Friday, May 5, 2017

Canal Rubber

A couple of readers sent in a listing offering the Canal Rubber site for rent. "Currently Canal General Merchandise and Canal Rubber," it reads, with a plea and a renaming: "Join Canal Street’s burgeoning design district."

And, of course, there's a rendering of the blandification that the realtor hopes will come, clearly a dream of Shake Shack (and a different breed of people):



Canal Rubber has been in this location since 1954. I called the place and was told that the building has been sold to a new owner, but the shop is not closing: "We're not going anywhere."

That's good news because Canal Rubber is beloved--by customers, of course, but also by passersby, thanks to its unique vintage signage. IF IT'S IN RUBBER - WE HAVE IT!

(They've got a great Twitter feed that shows all the amazing things you can do with their products.)



Urban miniaturist Alan Wolfson even rendered Canal Rubber in Lilliputian dimensions. Long live Canal Rubber.


mini Canal Rubber, Alan Wolfson



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5 comments:

  1. DowntownerMay 5, 2017 at 10:09 AM

    When I was in art school, Canal Street was the place to get materials. You needed basic stuff, Pearl Paint. Plastics - Canal Plastics. Rubber? This place.

    It's a shame many of them are leaving. There simply aren't alternatives to these places - they're one entity that has no online counterpart.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. BrianMay 5, 2017 at 2:05 PM

      Industrial Plastics at 309 Canal and Mercer was awesome, and had a cool sign too.

      Delete
  2. BrianMay 5, 2017 at 11:47 AM

    My favorite sign on Canal Street.

    ReplyDelete
  3. UnknownMay 5, 2017 at 6:22 PM

    Because trendy chain burger bars and sterile soulless Shake shacks are what made this city the unique industrious metropolis known and revered the world over! Manhattan is just screaming to have a place like the one depicted in this developers vision! People just can't get enough of globalized food choices,... That shit never gets old! If this grand proposal were to happen, it would at last complete the plans of the cities great visionaries to transform Canal street into just another suburban strip mall. Only this unique industrial rubber products supplier has to be standing in the way! Oh.. curse our great misfortune! How do these old school businesses still manage to stay in operation, standing in the way of "progress" despite all efforts to reinvent the city and make it comfortable for the trendiest of the consumer elites???

    ReplyDelete
  4. UnknownMay 6, 2017 at 2:48 PM

    Hi, Canal Rubber is not for rent. The posting is wrong.

    ReplyDelete

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