Atlantic's Antique Row Heading Towards Obsolescence?
The string of antique shops lining Atlantic Avenue between Hoyt and Bond is becoming a thing of the past. Yul Vilbaum Antiques, near the corner of Hoyt, recently shuttered, and it’ll soon be replaced by a Steven Alan boutique. By the end of this month, Boerum Hill Restoration—known for its selection of old-school office furniture—will…
The string of antique shops lining Atlantic Avenue between Hoyt and Bond is becoming a thing of the past. Yul Vilbaum Antiques, near the corner of Hoyt, recently shuttered, and it’ll soon be replaced by a Steven Alan boutique. By the end of this month, Boerum Hill Restoration—known for its selection of old-school office furniture—will shut down its retail arm at 375 Atlantic. Two doors down, Repeat Performance‘s owner is retiring and closing his 29-year-old shop. Meanwhile, the biggest store on the strip, Horseman Antiques, has been threatening to go out of business for a long time; Horseman’s owner is trying to sell the building. Norman Benjamin, the owner of Boerum Hill Restoration, says his store and others are closing or have closed because of shifting consumer tastes and the “upscaling” of the neighborhood. “Twenty years ago, every address on the block was an antique store,” says Benjamin, who opened his store in 1979 and will continue to operate a restoration business out of the back of 375 Atlantic. “There were easily 30 of them.” Benjamin notes that most of the stores carried Victorian or turn-of-the-century antiques, which he believes have fallen out of favor with many consumers who now look for mid-century pieces. About 10 antique stores still remain on the street, and Benjamin thinks there will always be vestiges of the old district even though it’s not considered a destination retail strip in the way it once was. “In the late ’70s and early ’80s, it had such a following,” he says. “People would say, ‘Let’s go to Atlantic Avenue this weekend,’ and when they were here, they’d ask us if there was a coffee shop nearby, and we had nowhere to send them. Now there are wine bars, clubs, and restaurants. Very high-end stores are no longer afraid to come to this neighborhood.” GMAP
There are still some. A friend of mine got an amazing huge stained glass window from Eddie’s for 250$.There’s another place on Bed-stuy, I’ll have to look it up, where you can still find great stuff too.
I’d gladly do the auction thing- it’s a lot of fun. Sometimes the hunting is better than the finding.
You can find some things at Brooklyn Flea and the prices are mixed. Hudson is way overpriced and upstate antique stores are essentially retail. If you don’t go to auctions or buy directly from relatives of recently deceased persons, you will rarely get the great bargains. So what is your time worth? Do you want to drive a few hours and sit an an auction and maybe saves a few hundred dollars? Because if you add it up, that’s about it unless you are planning to outfit a whole house. With gas an tolls, it may not be worth it.
Atlantic Avenue is changing so much…almost don’t like it.
All this ’boutique-ifing’ of a neighborhood really turns me away from it.
I still go to Atlantic about once a week to shop at Sahadi, buy a spinach pie at Damascus Bakery or have lunch / dinner at Yemeni Cafe (across Atlantic from Sahadi – the best roasted lamb, ever!!!)
The antique stores are so overpriced. It seems like it’s so hard to find a bargain in NYC anymore.
Me too, bayridgegirl!
I admit Hudson is not really for bargains. For that, try the flea markets in South Jersey like Berlin, Columbus, Cowtown!
Just went to Adamstown,PA for Antiques. It’s a town that has about 25 Antique ‘malls’, over 7 miles. Didn’t find what I was looking for. But found other things. There was alot of decorative stuff. It was fun walking around…the prices can’t be beat. Even the expensive things were cheap compared to NYC and even Hudson. Next stop for me in the antique trail is a town outside of Gettysburg, forget the name, but it too has alot of antique stores.
I miss the Atlantic Avenue of yesteryear 🙁
Never liked Horseman- he always had a reputation for being questionable. I do love all the new shops and such, but times change. Part of the fun used to be going into dingy, dark places and discovering something wonderful. Some of the older stores had been around for years and the owners were interestingly sharp and crusty. Reminded me of the old sailors who used to have booths in the seaport before it was renovated into the bland and boring food court it is today.
True the oak and victorian stuff was always high in relation to everything else, but a bargain then compared to Manhattan. Now I go upstate to find stuff- it’s lots more fun and still great to find a treasure.
Oh yeah, if you have a car, Hudson, NY is where many dealers have moved.
What the antiques trade calls “brown furniture” has been rapidly declining in popularity. They complain about it all the time. Horseman actually has quite a lot of Midcentury Modern but there prices are high. They have a location in Jersey so they will continue on. I do agree that I have always loved NYC “districts” and they are almost all gone. There is still a bit of a trimmings district but the flower district and fur district are pretty much kaput. I guess there is a Marc Jacobs district on Bleecker now.