Plan

Where to go before and after.

Browse stops

76 stops
Chelsea
192 Books
Bookshop

A single narrow shop on Tenth Avenue at 21st, opened in 2003 by the gallerist Paula Cooper and the editor Jack Macrae. Literary fiction, translation, art and photography, poetry and a children's section, with art hung on the walls between the shelves. There is a story hour at eleven on Wednesdays and a long-running readings series. Open every day.

Mon to Sun, 11am to 7pm

Chelsea Guitars
Guitar shop

A very small shop wedged into the ground floor of the Hotel Chelsea block on West 23rd, hung floor to ceiling with used and vintage instruments. There has been a music shop in this building since 1908 and this one has been here for decades. Dan behind the counter would rather talk about a guitar than sell you one. You can walk in with no intention of buying anything.

Mon to Sat, noon to 6pm. Closed Sunday

Dave's New York
Workwear store

A family workwear store on Sixth Avenue between 16th and 17th, founded in 1963 and now run by the second and third generations. Jeans stacked by waist size, Carhartt and military surplus, work boots and a wall of belts. Staff will measure you and will also leave you alone. It is the last shop of its kind left on this stretch of Sixth Avenue.

Mon to Sat, 10am to 6pm. Closed Sunday

Fishs Eddy
Restaurant-ware shop

Fishs Eddy has been selling surplus restaurant china and its own city-themed tableware since 1986, first on Broadway at 19th, and it opened inside Chelsea Market in 2026. The stock starts with heavy diner crockery and mugs with jokes on them. The 212 skyline pattern has been printed for decades. Prices run from a few dollars up, which is unusual for a shop in this building. You can browse for ten minutes without anyone approaching you.

Mon to Sat, 10am to 8pm. Sun, 10am to 7pm

Li-Lac Chocolates
Chocolate counter

George Demetrious left Greece, learned chocolate in France and opened on Christopher Street in 1923, which makes this the oldest chocolate house in Manhattan. The Chelsea Market counter came in 2016 and still works from his recipes, including the molded Statue of Liberty that has been in the case for most of a century. Everything is sold by weight out of a glass case and you can buy one piece.

Mon to Sun, 11am to 7pm

Printed Matter
Artists' book shop

A non-profit founded in 1976 to sell artists' books, now on Eleventh Avenue up near 26th. It moves more than thirty thousand publications a year for artists and small presses, which means the tables are full of things no other shop carries. Nothing is expensive and nobody follows you round. It shuts for two weeks in late July to count stock.

Tue to Sat, 11am to 7pm. Sun, 11am to 6pm. Closed Monday, and closed for annual inventory from about July 20 to August 3

Salumeria Biellese
Salumeria and sandwich counter

Piedmontese butchers have been curing on this corner since 1925, and half the kitchens in the city buy their salumi here. Ask for a sandwich at the counter and they will build it off the same case.

Mon to Sat, 10am to 5pm. Closed Sunday

Upper East Side
Agata & Valentina
Italian market

A family-run Italian food shop that opened on First Avenue in 1993 and has a butcher, a fish counter, a cheese case and a prepared-food line running the length of one wall. You can assemble a meal out of it in ten minutes and eat it in a park. It is open until nine every night of the week, which a grocery rarely is.

Daily, 8am to 9pm

Corner Bookstore
Bookshop

A bookshop that has held the corner of Madison and 93rd since 1978, in a space small enough that the whole stock is within sight of the door. The selection is chosen rather than warehoused, which means fewer copies of more interesting things. There is a children's section at the back that the neighborhood treats as a fixture. Open seven days.

Mon to Sat, 10am to 6pm. Sun, 11am to 5pm

Kitchen Arts & Letters
Cookbook shop

Nach Waxman opened this on Lexington in 1983 and it has only ever sold books about food and drink, which is somewhere around twelve thousand of them at a time. The staff have read them and will argue with you about which one you want. Out-of-print titles sit behind the counter rather than on the shelves, so ask. It closes at six and does not open on Sunday outside December.

Mon to Sat, 10am to 6pm. Closed Sunday

Orwashers Bakery
Bread bakery

Abraham Orwasher opened this on 78th Street in 1916 and lived in an apartment at the back of it. The rye and pumpernickel that built the business are still sold over the same counter, alongside a later line of breads leavened with Long Island wine grapes rather than commercial yeast. It is a small shop with a short line and no seating. Buy a loaf or a babka and eat it somewhere else.

Daily, 7am to 6pm

Sable's Smoked Fish
Appetizing shop

Danny and Kenny Sze ran the fish counter at Zabar's for more than a decade before opening their own shop in 1990, and they have been slicing sturgeon and sable and nova to order ever since. It is a narrow counter on Third Avenue with a case at the front and a line that moves. Order a sandwich on a bagel and take it with you. The lobster salad is what most of the regulars are actually there for.

Mon to Fri, 8:30am to 6:30pm. Sat, 7:30am to 6:30pm. Sun, 7:30am to 5pm

Schaller & Weber
German butcher

Ferdinand Schaller opened this in 1937 after arriving in Yorkville, and the shop has been on Second Avenue ever since, selling bratwurst, liverwurst, bacon and the kind of mustard and pickles that go with them. Everything was made on the premises until 1960 and the counter still works the old way, which is that you say what you want and someone cuts it. Schaller's Stube next door puts a sausage on a roll if you would rather eat now than later.

Mon to Sat, 10am to 8pm. Sun, 11am to 6pm

Flushing
Ten Ren's Tea Time
Tea shop

Tins of oolong and jasmine behind glass on one side and a drinks counter on the other, which is how Flushing had bubble tea before the franchises arrived on every corner of Main Street. Drinks are made one at a time from whole leaf rather than powder. You can buy loose tea by weight and leave with a paper bag of it.

Daily, 10am to 7pm

Murray Hill
H Mart Koreatown
Korean supermarket

A Korean supermarket down a flight of stairs on 32nd Street, tighter and busier than the suburban ones. Tanks of live fish at the back, a wall of kimchi by weight, instant noodles in a range no other shop on this island carries, and a row of rice cakes by the till. Open until eleven every night.

Daily, 8am to 11pm

New Foods of India
Indian grocery and spice shop

A narrow Curry Hill grocery with sacks of basmati on the floor and spices sold loose by weight rather than in jars. Lentils and flours along one wall, Indian snack mixes and sweets at the front, and a fridge of paneer and frozen parathas at the back. Cheaper than the better-known shop two doors along and rarely busy.

Mon to Sat, 10am to 9pm. Sun and holidays, 11am to 8pm

Coney Island
Gold Label International Food
Russian grocery and prepared food

A Russian grocery with a prepared-food counter at the front doing piroshki stuffed with cabbage or meat, smoked fish by the pound and sausage cut to order. Prices are written by hand and are low. It is the kind of shop where you buy lunch and also leave with a jar of something you did not plan on.

Daily, 9am to 8pm

William's Candy Shop
Candy counter

Next door to Nathan's on Surf Avenue and in business since 1941, with trays of candy apples in the window and marshmallow sticks rolled in caramel behind the glass. The candy apple is the thing to get and the fruit under the shell is better than it has any reason to be. It stays open later than almost anything else on this stretch and it is open in February.

Mon to Thu, 10am to 10:30pm. Fri and Sat, 9:30am to 11:30pm. Sun, 9:30am to 11pm. Open year round

Downtown Newark
Source of Knowledge
Black bookstore

A Black-owned bookshop on Broad Street that has been Newark's independent bookstore for decades, stocking Black history, fiction and children's books and hosting author events. It sits in the stretch of downtown between the arena and Military Park. Shelves are packed tight and the staff will point you at something.

Mon to Sat, 10am to 6pm. Closed Sun

East Village
A-1 Record Shop
Used record shop

Isaac Kaufman opened this used record shop on East 6th Street in 1996 and it has not moved since. The bins are deep on soul and disco, and the dance twelve-inches keep turning over. It is a minute from the Drom door.

Mon to Sat, noon to 8pm. Sunday hours not confirmed

East Williamsburg
Human Head Records
Record shop

New and used vinyl on Meserole Street, two doors from 3 Dollar Bill. The stock leans punk and metal. Reissues fill another part of the bins, and the cheap records are worth the time. Open noon to eight, seven days.

Daily noon to 8pm.

Human Relations
Used bookstore

A used and new bookstore on Flushing Avenue, trading since 2012. The shelves run heavily to poetry and philosophy, with a large foreign language section toward the back. Stock turns over fast and the prices stay low.

Daily noon to 7pm.

Urban Jungle
Warehouse vintage shop

The biggest of the L Train Vintage shops, in a warehouse on Knickerbocker Avenue where the racks run the length of the floor. Most of what is on them falls between five and thirty dollars. It closes at 7pm, or half past on the weekend.

Monday to Thursday noon to 7pm. Friday to Sunday noon to 7:30pm.

Penn District
Koryo Books
Bookstore

Korean fiction and magazines downstairs, with a tea counter on the second floor where you can sit. It has been on this block for close to thirty years.

Mon to Sat, 10am to 9pm. Sun, 11am to 7pm

Williamsburg
Desert Island
Comics and zine store

Gabe Fowler opened this in 2008 in an old bakery storefront and kept the sign. It stocks comics, zines and art books, much of it self-published and sold on consignment. Fowler also runs Comic Arts Brooklyn out of it.

Wed to Sun noon to 7pm. Closed Monday and Tuesday

Earwax Records
Record store

Open since 1990 and on North 9th Street since 2013, selling new and used LPs and 7-inches along with turntables and amps. The buy counter is the point as much as the racks. Closed Wednesdays.

Mon, Tue, Thu and Fri 11:30am to 6:30pm. Sat 11:30am to 7pm. Sun noon to 6:30pm. Closed Wednesday

West Nyack
Old World Food Market
Specialty grocer

A grocer on Route 59 with an in-house butcher and a prepared-foods case, stocking imported meats and cheeses. There is a fish counter at one end and a pastry section at the other. The prepared case is the part people use on a weeknight. It is open to 9pm, later than anything else of its kind nearby.

Mon to Sat, 8am to 9pm. Sun, 8am to 8pm

True Believers Gaming & Collectibles
Comics and games shop

A comics, trading card and collectibles shop on the third level of Palisades Center, with graded cards behind glass and open boxes to dig through. Stock leans on Pokemon and wrestling alongside older action figures and plush. The owners run four stores, with the rest in New Jersey, and this one moved into a larger unit inside the mall.

Mon to Thu, 10am to 8pm. Fri and Sat, 10am to 9:30pm. Sun, 11am to 7pm

Greenwich Village
Generation Records
Record store

A two-level shop on Thompson Street that built its reputation on punk and hardcore, with used vinyl down the stairs in the basement. New releases and everything else sit on the ground floor. Staff will let you dig for an hour without asking what you are looking for.

Mon to Sat, noon to 8pm. Sun, noon to 7pm

Rutherford
Soldato Books & Records
Book and record shop

A used book and vinyl shop that operates out of the Williams Center itself, so you reach it without leaving the building the show is in. Nate, who runs it, also lists the vinyl on Discogs, which is a fair guide to what the racks hold. It keeps longer hours than most of Park Avenue and stays open to eight every night, so it is still lit when a curtain goes up.

Mon to Fri, noon to 8pm. Sat, 10am to 8pm. Sun, 4pm to 8pm

Bushwick
Molasses Books
Used bookshop with a bar

Secondhand books along one wall and a short bar along the other, open until midnight every day. You can buy a paperback and a glass of wine in the same transaction, which is an odd combination that works because neither half is trying very hard.

Daily 11am to midnight

East Shore
JHU Comic Books
Comic shop

A comic shop on New Dorp Lane run by two people who have been selling comics on this island since the 1980s, with new issues racked by week and long boxes behind them. There are back issues, trade paperbacks and the usual toys and statues. It opens at noon and shuts at six or seven, so it is an afternoon errand rather than an evening one.

Mon, Tue, Sat and Sun, noon to 6pm. Wed to Fri, noon to 7pm

Hell's Kitchen
Esposito Meat Market
Butcher

A butcher counter on Ninth since 1932, still cutting to order. Sausage made in the back and sold by the pound.

Mon to Sat, 8am to 6pm. Closed Sunday

International Grocery
Grocery

Open bins of spices and grains weighed out by hand. A survivor of the Greek stretch of Ninth Avenue, still run by the same family.

Mon to Sat, roughly 9am to 7pm. Sun, shorter

Lower East Side
Economy Candy
Candy store

Open on Rivington since 1937 and run now by the third generation of the same family. The shelves go to the ceiling and carry brands that stopped being sold everywhere else. Almost nothing in here costs more than a few dollars.

Daily, 11am to 6pm

South Bronx / Melrose
Casa Amadeo, antigua Casa Hernández
Latin record shop

The oldest continuously running music shop in New York, opened on Prospect Avenue in 1941 as Casa Hernández and bought in 1969 by the Puerto Rican musician and composer Mike Amadeo, who has run it since. It sells Latin records, sheet music and instruments, and it is on the National Register of Historic Places for what it did for Latin music in this country. Amadeo wrote songs that Tito Rodríguez and Celia Cruz recorded and he is usually behind the counter.

Roughly Mon to Sat, 10am to 6pm. The shop posts no fixed schedule and the hours track the owner, so call before a long trip

The Lit. Bar
Bookstore with a bar

Noëlle Santos opened this on Alexander Avenue after the Bronx was left without a general bookstore, having raised the money for it in public. It is a bookshop with a small bar in it, so you can buy a novel and drink a glass of wine without leaving. The selection leans hard on Black and Latino writers and on the borough itself. It is one large shop rather than a chain of departments.

Tue to Thu, 2pm to 7pm. Fri and Sat, 2pm to 8pm. Closed Sunday and Monday. This is the conservative reading: the AALBC directory posted a wider Sunday and Monday noon to 8pm and Tuesday to Saturday noon to 10pm in August 2026, so call 347-955-3610 if the afternoon matters

St. George / Stapleton
Every Thing Goes Book Cafe and Neighborhood Stage
Used bookshop and cafe

The only used bookshop on Staten Island, spread through the ground floor of a Bay Street building with cafe tables in among the shelves and a garden out the back. You can play the 33s and 45s on a turntable. The 78s are there too. Fair-trade coffee sits near house plants and a ten-for-ten-dollars CD bin. It is run by the Ganas community, which has been on the island since the 1970s, and the same space puts on poetry readings and open mics. Film screenings use it too.

Wed to Sat, noon to 6pm, later on event nights. Closed Sunday, Monday and Tuesday

Lanka Grocery
Sri Lankan grocery

A narrow shop on Victory Boulevard stocking the Sri Lankan side of Tompkinsville: teas, curry powders and spices, fresh produce you will not find in a supermarket beside clay cooking pots. A rack holds Sinhala-language newspapers and CDs. Tompkinsville holds the largest Sri Lankan population in the United States and this is one of the two groceries that serves it. It is a shop rather than a kitchen, so it is a ten-minute errand and not a sit-down.

Daily, roughly 9am to 9pm. The shop posts no hours of its own and the figure is from listings, so it is flagged as unverified

Bedford Park
Madonia Brothers Bakery
Bread bakery

Mario Madonia started this bakery in 1918 and it has stayed in the family since, on Arthur Avenue, baking in a deck oven installed the year it opened. Pane di casa, olive bread and the lard bread people come across the borough for, plus cannoli filled when you ask rather than in advance. It opens at half past six in the morning. There is no seating and the transaction takes two minutes.

Mon to Sat, 6:30am to 7pm. Sun, 6:30am to 6pm

Bedford-Stuyvesant
Sincerely, Tommy
Concept shop with a coffee counter

Kai Avent-deLeon, who grew up in the neighborhood, opened this on Tompkins Avenue in 2014 selling womenswear and jewelry from small labels, a lot of them Brooklyn ones, plus ceramics. A coffee counter called S,T Coffee sits at the back and keeps people coming in who are not there to shop. She also started Building Black Bed-Stuy, which runs a Sunday marketplace for Black-owned vendors.

Mon to Fri, 11am to 5pm. Sat and Sun, 11am to 6pm

Brooklyn Heights
Books Are Magic, Montague Street
Independent bookstore

The Brooklyn Heights branch of the Cobble Hill bookstore, opened on Montague in 2022 in a wide storefront with a children's section at the back. Staff shelf-talkers are handwritten and the front table turns over weekly. It runs author events most weeks, so check the calendar before you plan to browse quietly.

Every day, 10am to 6pm

Sahadi's
Middle Eastern grocery

Wade Sahadi moved the family shop to Atlantic Avenue in 1948 and the counter system has barely changed since. You take a ticket for olives and cheese. Prepared food is at the same counter, with the bulk bins of nuts, dried fruit, spices and coffee run the length of the store. There is a saj counter making flatbread to order at the back. It is the anchor of the Atlantic Avenue Middle Eastern strip and the reason the rest of it is still there.

Every day, 10am to 7pm

Harlem
Grandma's Place
Toy and book shop

Dawn Crosby Harris-Martine, a career New York City educator, has run this children's bookshop and toy store on West 120th Street since 1999. Books, educational toys, games and dolls fill a storefront the neighborhood raised money to save when the rent threatened it in 2021. She is usually behind the counter.

Wed and Thu, noon to 7pm. Fri to Sun, 10am to 8pm. Closed Mon and Tue

West Village
Three Lives & Company
Bookshop

A corner bookshop on West 10th and Waverly, open since 1978, back in its original corner since 2022 after the building was renovated. The stock is small and hand-picked and the staff will actually talk to you about it. You can be in and out in ten minutes or stay for an hour.

Mon to Sat, 10am to 7pm. Sun, noon to 7pm

Astoria
Titan Foods
Greek supermarket

A Greek specialty supermarket that spent close to forty years at 25-50 31st Street and reopened on Steinway Street on August 1, 2025 in a much larger space. It is shelves of olive oil and rusks, a long cheese and olive counter facing a butcher. Freezers hold phyllo and spinach pies. People come from outside the neighborhood for the feta and the loukoumades. Useful if you want to carry something away rather than sit down.

Mon to Sat, 8am to 9pm. Sun, 9am to 9pm

Downtown Jersey City
Iris Records
Used record shop

A used vinyl shop on Brunswick Street open since 1996, which makes it older than most of the buildings around it. Stock is secondhand and stacked rather than sorted into a display. It opens two days a week and that is the whole schedule.

Mon and Sat, noon to 6pm. Closed Tue to Fri and Sun

WORD Jersey City
Independent bookstore

The Jersey City branch of a Greenpoint bookshop, now on a side street off Hamilton Park rather than its old Newark Avenue address. It is a general-interest shop with a staff-recommendation habit and a children's section at the back, and it runs readings and a book club. Open the same hours seven days a week, which very little else here manages.

Daily, 10am to 7pm

Garment District
B&H Photo Video
Camera and audio store

Two floors of cameras and audio gear moved around overhead by conveyor bins. The staff know the equipment and will talk you out of the wrong purchase.

Sun 10am to 6pm. Mon to Thu 9:30am to 7pm. Fri 9:30am to 1pm. Closed Saturday

Mood Fabrics
Fabric store

Three floors of bolts stacked to the ceiling in a Garment District loft, sold by the yard to anyone who walks in. The staff cut for working designers all day and will still measure two yards for you.

Mon to Fri, 9am to 6pm. Sat, 10am to 5pm. Closed Sunday

The Drama Book Shop
Bookstore

Plays and scripts floor to ceiling, with a coffee counter and tables you are allowed to sit at. Lin-Manuel Miranda backed the 2021 move to this address.

Mon to Sat, 11am to 7pm. Sun, noon to 6pm

Kingsbridge / Riverdale
S&S Cheesecake
Cheesecake bakery

A family bakery that has made one thing in the same West 238th Street storefront for more than fifty years. You walk into what is effectively the factory, buy a cheesecake over the counter and leave. There is no seating and no menu, and the operation is mostly wholesale with a retail window attached.

Mon to Fri, 8:30am to 3pm. Closed Saturday and Sunday. Hours move, so call first

Lower Manhattan
Bowne & Co., Stationers
Letterpress print shop

A working 19th century print shop run by the South Street Seaport Museum, with the presses in the back and what they print for sale at the front. You do not need a museum ticket to walk in. Most of the stock is paper goods set and printed on the premises.

Wednesday to Sunday, 11am to 5pm. Closed Monday and Tuesday

Ridgewood
Deep Cuts Record Store
Record shop

Buying, selling and trading records on Catalpa since 2012, with cassettes and CDs alongside the vinyl. Open noon to seven every day of the week, which is unusual for a shop this size.

Daily noon to 7pm

Topos Bookstore Cafe
Used bookshop and cafe

Secondhand books and a coffee counter in the same storefront on Woodward, with a second location on Myrtle that added beer and wine in 2023. Open from 8am on weekdays, which makes it one of the few places to sit in Ridgewood before the bars turn on.

Monday to Friday 8am to 7pm, Saturday and Sunday 10am to 7pm

Downtown Brooklyn
Greenlight Bookstore
Independent bookstore

Rebecca Fitting and Jessica Stockton Bagnulo opened Greenlight on the corner of Fulton and South Portland in 2009, raising part of the money from Fort Greene neighbors. Tall shelves, a wide front table of new fiction, a children's section at the back and handwritten staff cards all the way through. It runs author events most weeks and stays open until 10pm every night, which almost no other bookshop in Brooklyn does.

Every day, 10am to 10pm

Greenpoint
WORD
Bookstore

An independent bookstore on the corner of Franklin and Milton, open since 2007 in the Greenpoint historic district. New fiction and non-fiction are upstairs. Children's books are downstairs, and a reading series runs most weeks. Open 10am to 7pm every day.

Daily, 10am to 7pm

Jackson Heights
Maharaja Sweets & Snacks
Indian sweets counter

A mithai counter on 37th Avenue with trays of barfi, gulab jamun and jalebi behind the glass, sold by weight into a box. The snack side of the menu runs to samosas, chaat and pakoras made to order at the back. There are a few stools and most of the business walks out with a box tied in string. Prices are by the pound and a box for four people costs less than a round of drinks.

Mon to Thu, 10am to 9pm. Fri to Sun, 10am to 10pm

Upper West Side
Westsider Rare and Used Books
Used bookshop

A narrow two-level shop on Broadway with about fifty thousand used titles and a rare book section up a flight of stairs in the middle of the floor. Shelves run to the ceiling and there are sliding ladders to reach them. It has been at this address since 1971.

Daily, 10am to 7pm

Zabar's
Appetizing store

Louis and Lillian Zabar started the business in 1934 and it has occupied this corner of Broadway and 80th since. The ground floor is smoked fish, cheese and coffee sold by weight, and the housewares mezzanine upstairs sells cookware at prices that have not caught up with the neighborhood. The cafe on the corner does a sandwich and a coffee standing up.

Store Mon to Sat, 8am to 7:30pm. Sun, 9am to 6pm. Cafe Mon to Sat, 8am to 6pm. Sun, 9am to 6pm

Chinatown / Bowery
Yu & Me Books
Bookstore and bar

The first bookstore in New York owned by an Asian American woman, stocking writing from the Asian diaspora with a bar at the back. A fire in the building closed it in 2023 and it reopened on the same Mulberry Street block in January 2024 after the neighborhood raised the money. It stays open to eleven on the back half of the week.

Mon to Wed, 11am to 7pm. Thu to Sat, 11am to 11pm. Sunday hours not confirmed

Forest Hills
Aigner Chocolates
Chocolate shop

A candy shop that opened on Metropolitan Avenue in 1930 as Krause's Candy Kitchen and has been making chocolate in the back of the same storefront ever since. The Aigner family took it over in the early 1960s and two local women bought it in 2020 to keep it going. Copper kettles stand in the back and the pieces are hand-dipped. Hot chocolate comes to the counter in cold months. You buy by the piece or by the box.

Mon to Wed and Sun, 10am to 6pm. Thu to Sat, 10am to 8pm

Tribeca / Hudson Square
The Mysterious Bookshop
Crime fiction bookshop

Otto Penzler opened this in 1979 and it deals only in mystery and crime writing, which makes it the oldest shop of its kind in the country. Shelves run floor to ceiling on Warren Street, with signed first editions and a back wall given over entirely to Sherlock Holmes. Staff will find you something if you tell them what you last read.

Monday to Saturday, 11am to 7pm. Closed Sunday

Prospect Heights
Grand Army Plaza Greenmarket
Saturday farmers market

GrowNYC's flagship Brooklyn market, set up along the northwest corner of Prospect Park every Saturday of the year. Upstate growers, a cider stand, bread, and a compost and textile drop-off at the Flatbush end. It is outdoors and it runs in January the same as it does in July.

Saturdays only, 8am to 4pm, year-round

Park Slope
Brooklyn Superhero Supply Co.
Joke shop with a writing center behind it

A shop on Fifth Avenue selling capes, grappling hooks and tins of gravity, with a secret door at the back that opens onto 826NYC's free tutoring and writing center for kids. The shop funds the center. The staff will not break character, which is the whole transaction.

Tue to Sun, noon to 5pm. Closed Mondays

Community Bookstore
Bookstore

Brooklyn's oldest operating bookstore, on Seventh Avenue since 1971, with a garden behind the shelves that you can sit in. The front is new fiction and the back is where the staff recommendations get interesting. Readings happen here often enough that the calendar is worth a look on its own.

Mon to Sat, 10am to 7pm. Sun, 10am to 6pm

Union Square / Gramercy
Strand Book Store
Used and new bookshop

Four floors of used and new books at Broadway and 12th, open since 1927 and still run by the founding family. The dollar carts sit outside on the Broadway side and the rare book floor is at the top. You can spend ten minutes or two hours and nobody will approach you.

Listings updated September 2026 post 10am to 9pm daily. The store's antiquarian trade listing gives a later 10:30pm close, so the evening edge is not settled

Union Square Greenmarket
Farmers market

GrowNYC has run this market at the north and west edges of Union Square year round since 1976, with more than 140 growers and producers rotating through. It runs four days a week in all weather. Buy something you can eat standing up and take it into the park.

Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday, 8am to 6pm, year round

Washington Heights
Word Up Community Bookshop
Volunteer bookshop

A multilingual bookshop at 165th and Amsterdam run entirely by volunteers, most of them people who live in Washington Heights and Inwood. Books in Spanish and English sit on the same shelves and the back doubles as an event space. Nobody here is paid to sell you anything.

Tue, noon to 8pm. Wed to Sat, noon to 6pm. Closed Sun and Mon

Yonkers
Bronx River Books
Independent bookstore

An independent bookstore that opened in Scarsdale village in 2019, with a general stock, a strong children's section and a steady run of author events. It is a small storefront with the books facing out rather than spine-on, which tells you somebody is choosing them. Staff recommendations are handwritten on cards under the shelves.

Mon to Sat, 10am to 6pm. Sun, 11am to 4pm

NoHo / Astor Place
Astor Place Hairstylists
Basement barbershop

A barbershop below Astor Place that has been cutting since 1947, with a floor of chairs and no appointment needed. A cut costs a fraction of what the surrounding blocks charge. It opens at seven in the morning.

Mon and Tue, 7am to 7pm. Wed to Fri, 7am to 9pm. Sat and Sun, 7am to 7pm

Ergot Records
Record shop and label

A shop and label on East 2nd Street dealing in experimental music, with tapes and books alongside the records. Village Preservation made it their Business of the Month in July 2026. They buy as well as sell, so the stock moves.

Mon to Thu, 11am to 7pm. Fri and Sat, noon to 8pm. Sun, noon to 6pm

Flatiron / NoMad
Kalustyan's
Spice and grocery shop

Two floors of spices and dried chilies on Lexington Avenue, open since 1944 and the reason cooks call this stretch Curry Hill. Rice and tea fill the rest of the shelves. There is a counter upstairs selling sandwiches if you want to eat something there. The stock runs to hundreds of varieties and the staff know where all of it is.

Mon to Sat, 10am to 8pm. Sun, 11am to 7pm

Rizzoli Bookstore
Bookshop

The New York branch of the Italian publisher, moved to 1133 Broadway in 2015 after losing its West 57th Street building. The stock leans to art and architecture, with design and photography alongside, in a two-level space with a painted ceiling and chandeliers. It is the ground floor of the same block as the Jazz Gallery.

Mon to Sat, 11am to 8pm. Sun, 11am to 7pm

Pleasantville
Second Mouse Cheese Shop
Cheese shop

A small cheese counter a few doors along Manville Road from the cinema, stocking American farmstead wheels and imported ones alongside cured meat, crackers and preserves. Everything is cut to order and the staff will put a board together while you wait. It is a shop rather than a grocery, so the case is small and what is in it moves.

Wed to Fri, 10am to 6pm. Sat, 9am to 6pm. Sun, 11am to 5pm. Closed Monday and Tuesday