I haven’t mentioned it often but I’m something of a stationery store aficionado. When I worked at Photo-Lettering, NYC’s biggest typesetting shop in the 1980s as a proofreader, we dealt with proofs on all sorts of surfaces, from shiny Agfa paper to see-through glassines. We could compare original proofs to newer proofs on these acetates to see if there were any mistakes (I got spoiled by this, as no shop I subsequently worked for did it this way.) The smell of ammonia and pasteup paste was in the air. Markup staff sat in the front and the guys toiling on display type for larger ads toiled in the back. A martinet from the old hot type days named Arnie strode cursing on the shop floor, using a jump rope to keep himself occupied during down times. He was replaced overnights by a guy named Richie who would sing James Brown’s “Get on the Good Foot.” I lasted 7 years and quit when I was cursed out by the day shift boss for getting too uppity and desiring a markup position. Today, type shops and those jobs are all gone.
Sometimes, before my shift, I’d wander into a Sam Flax on 3rd Avenue, the art supplies shop begun by a European immigrant decades before that had a number of locations around town. I’d be in there every few weeks for a new set of Sharpies for markups. I had to have just the right type, and they’d wear down quickly.
When I was a kid, there was a hole in the wall stationery store in the heart of Bay Ridge near the intersection of 5th Avenue and 86th Street. In the early 1970s I was just getting interested in maps and that store carried a goodly selection of Hagstroms. I still have some of the maps of New Jersey and area suburbs I purchased there with weekly allowance money.
Much later, the high teen streets in Manhattan between 5th and 6th were something of a printing supplies fiefdom with stationers, copy shops and photo supplies such as Adorama. There was a fairly large stationer on West 18th that was big enough to carry office furniture and I enjoyed going in and browsing around. I found a fascinating collection of British birthday/greeting cards that had a CD of hits from 1965, 1966, etc. for the year the giftee was born. Since the songs were hits on the British chart they weren’t readily available in the USA and several of those songs are still in my collection today.
Recently I was staggering around Midtown and at #9 East 47th I found this terrific plastic-letter sign for Phil’s Stationery but since it was a Sunday, they were closed. If you believe the balloons in the window they have been in business at least since 1974. Stationery stores are getting rare as are signs like this.
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2/19/24