I read a Times article today (via Jeremiah's Vanishing New York) reporting that the New York Doll Hospital on the Upper East Side is closing, following the death of its chief ...er... surgeon, Irving D. Chais. I vividly remember seeing this second-story shop window for years. I can't say I ever went in, although I believe I considered taking an old "Planet of the Apes" action-figure there to be repaired at one point.
The New York Doll Hospital is also of some renown to rock dorks like myself, given that it legendarily inspired the name of New York's own proto-punk institution, The New York Dolls (`Dolls guitarist Sylvain Sylvain and original drummer Billy Murcia worked in a clothing shop across the street). That alone is reason enough to pour one out for the New York Doll Hospital. The surviving `Dolls, meanwhile, are about to release a new album, and having a party at poser-kingpin John Varvatos' sartorial shrine to expensive revisionism to celebrate it tomorrow. Boo hiss.
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