Best of Manhattan 2025 - Neighborhood Stores

Best Running Store

UWS

Fleet Feet

10 Columbus Circle

www.fleetfeetnyc.com

212-823-9626

Getting new running shoes is such a personal thing, with different people having disparate needs – and disparate knees! – it’s best to try on a variety of makes and models. Enter Fleet Fleet, the national running specialty company that acquired Jackrabbit, the independent NYC chain that previously ran this and Brooklyn stores. The transition is significant, as the former store had forged an unusually strong, individualized relationship to the community and many local runners still refer to “their” preferred Fleet Feet “Jackrabbit.” It’s not, it’s different but this change has its advantages, including a consistently large selection of shoes, clothes, and accessories including Garmin watches, a 30-day return policy even on used shoes. If Fleet Feet’s established corporate culture seems impersonal from the outside (such as social media), in person this store, located on the second floor of the Time Warner Center, is in fact exceptionally affable. They’ll help you when you need it and let you browse without bother. The store also features a couple dozen small lockers for those wishing to store some things before they head into Central Park.

UES

Super Runner Shop

1438 Third Ave.

www.superrunnersshop.com

646-546-5100

This well-liked go-to spot on the Upper East Side has all the advantages of a running specialty shop, namely a strong selection of makes and models, relevant clothing and accessories, and a generally passionate staff. Going there in person is key, however, because though Super Runner Shop was founded by a remarkable individual named Gary Muhrcke, you’d never know it from their website—but should. On Sept. 13, 1970, Muhrcke, then 30, won the New York City Marathon, which was then run entirely in Central Park, four plus laps of rolling, and possibly grueling, hills. If Muhrcke’s winning time, 2:31:39, doesn’t seem that impressive today, consider the course, the fact he beat the second-place man, Tom Fleming, by over four minutes, and that Muhrcke had worked the night before—as an FDNY firefighter out in Far Rockaway, Queens. Why Super Runners’ present corporate owners (which bought the stores in 2012) don’t highlight this origin story is a mystery, but happily, enough of that gritty New Yorker Muhrcke magic carries over to the employees today—just try them, and, as Muhrcke famously exclaimed, “Never stop running!”

DT

Paragon Sports

867 Broadway

www.paragonsports.com

800-961-3030

While Paragon may seem overwhelming to the neophyte, that’s sort of the point: As a sports and outdoors store in Manhattan, they have almost everything, almost, including a substantial running section. All the expected brands are here, and affable, mostly young people help you choose between Asics, Hoka, New Balance, Saucony, and the like. It’s notable too that Paragon’s apparel selection is strong for men, better than most places. Speaking of clothes, especially on those chill autumn mornings when it’s too cold to run naked, Paragon’s strength as a total outdoors store pays great dividends in their huge selection of hats, gloves, jackets, vests, socks that have multiple possible uses—including running. Need a giant fluorescent green Stanley mug for whatever purpose? They have that too!

Best Vintage – Consignment Store

UWS

Ooh La La

60 W. 75th St.

www.instagram.com/_oohlalanyc

212-510-7735

While it’s too soon to call Ooh La La one of the best ever vintage and consignment stores—it opened just this past October—the Upper West Side newcomer, between Central Park West and Columbus Avenue, is so exciting one wouldn’t be surprised if it’s doesn’t soon ascend to the ranks of legend. Specializing in women’s and men’s luxury resale, consignment, and vintage contemporary accessories, its effervescent owner, Cassandra Goines, explained, “I buy and sell designer luxury-brand clothing, accessories and handbags, I do not buy or sell fast fashion or mass-produced items. I recognize the need for eco-conscious fashion and want to inspire people to make responsible fashion choices, using sustainable natural fabrics. Fast fashion contributes to environmental landfills.” Look sharp for less? Ooh!

UES

Upper East Side Thrift

1670 York Ave.

www.instagram.com/ues_thrift_shop_ny

212-951-0459

With a name so plainspoken and a claim to an entire neighborhood, this store had better be good and thankfully it is—and not just for East 87th Street. The store is also something of a happy throwback, eschewing fancy merchandising for a no-frills but passion-invested selection of goods across categories. Run by husband and wife George Khodzhayev (the former owner of the acclaimed Manhattan Barber Shop a block away on First and East 87th) and his wife, Anastasia Akodis, the store also lives up to its location in another sense, for this address was the former home of the legendary 116-year-old Glaser’s Bakery, which sadly closed, due to retirement, in 2018. It’s unknown what value a vintage black-and-white cookie might have in the fall of 2025, but one can always ask! The business has been so rewarding economically and, dare we say, spiritually, they opened a second store at 1720 Second Avenue between 89th and 90th streets, and another downtown, at 250 E. Houston St.

DT

City Opera Thrift Shop

513 W. 26th St.

www.cityoperathriftshop.org

212-684-5344

The beloved but troubled City Opera is still on the road to recovery after its mid-2010s bankruptcy, but the Thrift Shop, located just under the High Line entrance, soldiers on. Cynics might say, yeah, like Hiro Onoda, the Japanese Army soldier who, not believing the war was over, lived as a guerrilla in the Philippines jungle until 1974! That’s not really fair to City Opera: It really does exist, it even has a new logo, leadership, a chief conductor (Constantine Orbelian) and put on an excellent concert in Bryant Park this past summer. New York music lovers can only wish them the best for the day military-related works (Verdi’s “Il Trovatore,” Donizetti’s “La Fille du Régiment,” Prokofiev’s “War and Peace,” and Berg’s “Wozzeck”) return, and one way to make that wish manifest is by shopping here for both fashion and home goods, with 100% of proceeds going to New York City Opera.

Best Music Store

UWS

Jon Baltimore Music Company

151 W. 46th St., 2nd floor

www.jonbaltimoremusic.com

212-575-1508

Though the once-renowned shops that for decades defined “Music Row” on 48th Street are gone, Midtown isn’t entirely without musical treasures. Indeed, for certain folks, with good air in their lungs, dexterity in their fingers and tongue, and lip control few non-brass and woodwinds players can imagine, the Jon Baltimore Music Company is their mecca. Located on the second floor of an otherwise unassuming 14-story office building opened in 1928, from the moment you step off the elevator, Jon Baltimore is a wonder, with its walls festooned with signed photos of musical luminaries, especially jazzmen: Sonny Rollins, Marshall Allen, Ted Curson, hundreds more. Inside, there is a stunning array of saxophones, trumpets, trombones, clarinets, and more for sale or rent. Though the shop is a destination for world-renowned musicians (a recent Instagram post showed multi-reedman David Murray working out on his recently repaired bass clarinet), employees greet total strangers with kindness. Behind the counter with his workshop tools nearby is the legend Jon Baltimore himself, who has the alchemical skills to handle nearly any kind of instrument repair, including key / pad seating, cleaning, silver and gold playing, re-corking, and all manner of metal work from dent removal, rod straightening, silver soldering, and more. In the words of Louis Prima (as performed by the Benny Goodman Orchestra at their famous 1939 Carnegie Hall concert), “Sing Sing Sing (With A Swing)”!

UES

Brothers Guitar Shop

316 E. 84th St.

www.brosguitars.com

646-559-8771

A true neighborhood oasis one is shocked to just stumble onto—a music store in Yorkville, what?!—Brothers Guitar Shop is what its name says, the happy product of genuine siblings Frank and Shawn Gorelik. Turns out, what the Goreliks have achieved here shouldn’t be so surprising after all, for they started doing guitar repairs in 2017 as an extension of their work within the family hardware store, New York Paint and Hardware. As that store grew overly crowded with guitars, a guitar- only shop was born in November 2020; no COVID timidity or lockdown anxiety for these bros! ”We got overwhelmed. We had guitars hanging all over the place,” Frank told an interviewer. “We had to make moves and make moves quick.” Today, in addition to instrument repair, the shop is beginner friendly, selling new and used acoustic and electric guitars, pedals and effects, amplifiers and offering lessons—even drums!. Pick hit on the electric side: Fender Vintera II ‘60s Telecaster Thinline, 3-Tone Sunburst with gig bag.

DT

Rudy’s Music

461 Broome St.

www.rudysmusic.com

212-625-2557

Speaking of Music Row refugees, Rudy Mensa, world-renowned luthier and proprietor of Rudy’s Music, is one of them, starting there in 1978 and finally leaving, because of the rent, in 2015. Though the Argentina-born Mensa counts guitar heroes as luminous as Mark Knopfler among his intimates, the store welcomes everyone from starry professionals to a curious beginner and buys, sells, and trades and repairs guitars (acoustic and electric) at various price levels. Rudy’s also sells bass guitars, effects pedals, amplifiers, and more. Pick hit, even for the non-guitarist in your life: a heather raspberry-colored T-shirt with an illustration of the old 48th Street Rudy’s on the front. Wear it proudly—and tell ‘em “Best of” sent you!

Best Cooking - Kitchen Store

UWS

Sur La Table

306 W. 57th St.

www.surlatable.com/locations/ny/newyork/store-102.html

212-574-8334

Located on the ground floor of the old Hearst Building (opened 1928), above which rises the stunning 597-foot-tall Hearst Tower skyscraper (opened 2006), this local outpost of the national cooking-store and cooking-class chain is far more interesting than it might appear. There are a couple of reasons for this. First, on the 57th Street side, the store is suffering from the blight of scaffolding. This isn’t just a nightmare itself but obscures both the building’s handsome façade and the warm and cheerful store inside. Second, for reasons known only to “corporate,” Sur La Table’s website for the store doesn’t show an actual photo of this location; rather it’s an unknown but obviously non-Manhattan location in a shopping complex at dusk—perhaps it’s Tampa, Fla. or Scottsdale, Ariz. This is a shame because not only does Sur La Table’s broad assortment of kitchen and housewares impress, their range of cooking classes does also—and you even see the open kitchen when you walk in. Pick hit for a quickie gift: Onion-peeling goggles; for Date Night, a couples class, “Cooking Steak the Tuscan Way.”

UES

S. Feldman Housewares

1304 Madison Ave.

www.sfeldmanhousewares.com

212-289-7367

With a name like Feldman, the 20th-century classical-music enthusiast recalls the great “New York School” composer Morton. While Morton’s family were Turkish rug importers, these Feldmans, who have been in business since 1929, are purveyors of both the many things once expected in the five-and-dime they began as and much more. Indeed, for housewares, one can’t imagine a better local home, in Carnegie Hill or elsewhere. ”It’s an eclectic store,” Jake Feldman, great-grandson of the store’s founder, told an interviewer. “We carry over 10,000 items in about 1,000 square feet of space and maintain strong personal connections in an increasingly impersonal world. On an average day as many as 200 people may walk through our door; regardless, I know a good two-thirds of our customers by name.” If shopping with impatient children, check out Feldman’s interesting toy selection too.

DT

Korin

57 Warren St.

www.korin.com

800-626-2172

Not just a great neighborhood store but an amazing store, period. Korin is the king of Japanese cutlery. Though knives of all kinds—as well as knife sharpening—is what Korin is best known for, they also have a stunning selection of Japanese flatware, glasses, and like accessories. Korin also has the unique honor of playing a small but important role, as itself, in the Nick Tosches’ 2012 novel Me and The Devil. Without any spoilers, the book’s narrator is a writer who—as in some Philip Roth novels is also named Nick Tosches—is on a rejuvenation program against depression and alcoholism, which includes sharing intimacies with a brilliant and adventurous younger woman. “I slipped my shades back on and walked to Korin, the Japanese knife store around the block, on Warren Street,” Tosches wrote. “For some time I had been enticed by a one-of-a-kind hand-finished Togiharu gyuto knife, about nine or ten inches long, with a handle crafted from mammoth tusk. At about two grand, it was a steep price to pay for a kitchen knife. But. . . . ” No spoilers! (Though you can walk across the street to Mysterious Bookshop and pick up the story there.)

Best Hardware Store

UWS

University Hardware & Housewares

2906 Broadway

www.universityhardwarehouseware.com

917-633-7251

One of the great community success stories in Morningside Heights—nay, the entire Upper West—University Hardware & Housewares is such a joy to enter, one is likely to wish they had more repairs or home needs than they do just to spend time there. The reason for this passion isn’t fetishistic—not that there’s anything wrong with that—but rather two words, Bob Fendell, the store’s owner, who washed out of his career as a young, cold-calling investment broker and, in 1984, joined his uncle in the family business, which began in 1938. This predatory finance’s loss was everyone’s gain and, having a very good relationship with his landlord, Columbia University, Fendell moved into his location in 2018. Asked the favorite part of his job, Fendell told an interviewer, “Definitely the people,” Fendell said. “People come in because they need something—you’re not trying to sell them something they don’t need. They want to fix a lamp switch or a lightbulb or need a pillow.”

UES

New York Paint and Hardware

1668 First Ave.

212-249-1614

www.nypantandhardware.com

The first thing one notices, walking uptown, is the mural on the south-facing wall at East 87th Street and First Ave. Murals are always a good sign, figuratively and literally, and just one way the store gives back to the community. Walk inside and there’s that rush of abundance: so much stuff! And not just stuff: They also feature lamp repair, knife sharpening, tool rental (including carpet cleaners), window-screen repair, wood cutting, and all manner of paint and color matching. Opened in 1986 by an immigrant from Belarus turned New York taxi driver named Michael Gorelik, not only did Michael and his wife Victoria themselves become community fixtures, their two sons, Shawn and Frank, went into the business, which inadvertently gave birth to the Brothers Guitar Shop.

DT

Chelsea Hardware

328 Eighth Ave.

www.instagram.com/chelseahardwarenyc

646-649-4749

Opened in January 2023 on one of the sometimes-foreboding blocks of Eighth Avenue south of Penn Station, Chelsea Hardware itself is bright, clean, and friendly. Credit this to owners Pedro Figueroa and his wife, who have not only created a great store that fulfills many neighborhood needs—electrical, plumbing, keys, cleaning, paint, tools. Interestingly, the store succeeds a prior hardware emporium at this location, the mysteriously named 727 Hardware, which opened in the mid-2010s and closed, likely from some combination of COVID and scaffolding, sometime in 2020. A few years later, knowing the scaffolding would, someday, be gone, the Figueroas—who also own Midtown Hardware at 815 Second Ave. in Turtle Bay—made their move. And made Chelsea a a little more luminescent!