My father was a camera buff, or rather, he was a buff of taking pictures. Much like myself, he took thousands of photos, many of which remain in my collection. Among his other interests was tape recorders, of which he owned dozens throughout his life, from Wollensak to Uher. He was also a record collector, though at its peak it numbered about 200-300 in all genres, but he was especially fond of Scottish and Irish music: his Jimmy Shand collection was in the dozens. Strangely, though, I could not get him interested in computers and I don’t think he ever glimpsed this website, despite my repeated offers to purchase and install an Apple with an internet connection.
We made repeated forays into midtown, on West 31st and 6th Avenue to Willoughby’s, which by the 1960s had become the largest camera store in NYC, and boasted it was the oldest. It was founded by Charles G. Willoughby in 1898. On trips to places such as Dyken Pond outside Troy, NY and Atlantic City, NY my father could often be found in bathing trunks, but with camera, tape recorder and microphone strapped to his torso. He was a strong swimmer but needless to say, he stuck to wandering on the beach with this rig. To his eternal regret he could never get his yellow bellied son in the water to learn to swim.
Wandering around in midtown I found Willoughby’s on East 36th off of 5th Avenue. It’s a far cry from the old days, and features garish signage to lure in the tourists. What’s the biggest camera store in NYC now? My guess is B&H on 9th Avenue and West 34th. I have used Panasonic Lumixes for over a decade now (I use them till the on/off switch ceases working). It has so many functions, I have no idea what it does, but for my lazy point and shoot purposes it works fine except in the dark, when I switch to my IPhone camera.
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7/6/26
4 comments
Reasonable place to buy a Super 8 camera in the 1980s.
Whatever happened to “Peerless”” when it wss Willoughby Peerless?
Google your question exactly as written here. You’ll get a detailed answer too long to copy and paste here. In a nutshell, Willoughby Peerless split back into separate entities when parent company Berkey Photo went bankrupt, leading to a succession of sales and restructurings for both stores. Today, Willoughby’s continues to operate primarily online, while the Peerless Camera brand name has largely faded from active retail.
I still miss 47th Street Camera!