Bigelow Chemists is the oldest pharmacy in the country, located in the Village on 6th Avenue near 8th Street in a Beaux-Arts building (here’s a link with photos, history, and story). It’s a pleasure to go in – they specialize in very high quality and hard-to-find products for the skin and hair, fragrance for the home, and small luxury items for everyday life. They continue as a true apothecary, making their own line of remedies and filling prescriptions.

They cultivate relationships with their customers over years, an unusual practice in this type of business nowadays – getting to know the local residents. People come in to browse, take in the atmosphere, and try on the samples. Perhaps this is overly enthusiastic for a simple drugstore, but they have preserved an atmosphere that opens the door to the past and the senses simultaneously.

Note: Here’s a link to Indieperfumes, which goes into these sorts of topics in depth…

This place in the East Village on Second Avenue has been around since it first became the fun thing to wear nostalgic clothing ironically. They’ve now expanded their holdings to memorabilia, vintage toys, and accessories, layer upon layer, decade upon decade. They have a rather fierce sign at the door, “unattended children will be sold into slavery,” probably because it would be the perfect place for kids to go wild, play dress up, and pretend, endlessly.

Every inch is covered with old cocktail and prom dresses, antique toys, and references to and memorabilia of famous rock and roll figures from times gone by (inside photo). Madonna shopped here for the look she wore in her first movie – the tattered lace glove and rosary as jewelry look. Rents have risen astronomically, so they will be moving at the end of this year, around October, to another location somewhere along East Seventh Street. So, if you get the chance to visit before that, you will experience the original LSD in all its overheated and psychedelic glory. Kind of doubt they will be able to reproduce quite the effect they have grown here over decades…
L

Update: Love Saves the Day has since closed and moved to Pennsylvania.