I've been up to my eyeballs lately, still digging out from the holidays. I worry that most of my recent (non-music related) posts have been more reactive than proactive, invariably riffing off of other bloggers' original content. My comrades EV Grieve and Jeremiah Moss, meanwhile, have been stepping up their respective games with new stories of fresh disappearances around downtown (most recently the Telephone Bar and Pizzeria Uno, two establishments I hadn't stepped inside in eons, but still feel the loss of). Jeremiah posted a new one this morning that really bummed me out.
Evidently, Alphaville, that smart little vintage toy/ephemera store on West Houston street is closing its doors at the end of this month. I stumbled upon this interesting little shop -- exclusively devoted to all things cool, esoteric & arcane -- five or six Decembers ago when I was doing some last minute Christmas shopping. I was gobsmacked to find that they were selling a lovingly preserved Mego "Planet of the Apes Fortress" (an item I highly coveted as a young lad). I practically had to sit down next to it and genuflect. But that was just the tip of the iceberg. Inside Alphaville's walls was a bevy of seemingly forgotten treasures from the past, pristinely presented as the hallowed artifacts they justly deserved to be regarded as. If only there were more places like Alphaville, I invariably thought at the time.
Unsurprisingly, this great little shop is having a hard time in this economy and is being squeezed out like a blackhead by looming development on the block. It's yet another sad sign of the times. Pour one out for Alphaville.
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