Barclay Rex NYC 42nd St. Gone Goodbye...

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skaukatt

Can't Leave
From one of my NY Pipe Club Brothers: "Sad news to report. Barclay Rex tobacco shop on 42nd Street is closing their doors."

and "They wanted to triple their rent. Sad news ---now there is only Nat Sherman & Davidoff in Midtown."
and good news from another: "Their new store downtown is opened, on Pearl St."
and yet another: "All pipes $100+ are on sale. All tobacco is the same price. They'll consolidate at the downtown location in about 4 weeks. Sad to see this shop close."


 

fluffie666

Can't Leave
Apr 4, 2014
497
5
Native New Yorker here as well. I started smoking a pipe few years after leaving Manhattan. Ever since I started, a trip to Barclay Rex has been on the back burner. It's a shame I'll never get there. Anything you buy in any of the five boroughs is terribly expensive. Tobacco taxes have been through the roof in NY for quite a while now.

 

ssjones

Moderator
Staff member
May 11, 2011
18,317
11,070
Maryland
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You can smoke in NYC parks, if you are discrete (including Bryant Park). But, that could change with the officer and crowds on hand.
Sad news about Barclay Rex.

 

fitzy

Lifer
Nov 13, 2012
2,937
27
NY
Yeah this sucks. I wasn't in there very often but I would go to their store that used to be on Lex in the 50's that was also forced out by jacked up rents a year or two ago.
Unfortunately Davidoff isn't so good for pipes. De La Concha before they got taken over by Davidoff were a bit better.

 

dottiewarden

Lifer
Mar 25, 2014
3,053
57
Toronto
De La Concha before they got taken over by Davidoff were a bit better.
I was a De La Cocha customer when purchasing in the Big Apple. When I discovered that it had closed I decided just to order online.

 

fitzy

Lifer
Nov 13, 2012
2,937
27
NY
Dot it didn't exactly close. It was bought by Davidoff and rebranded into one of their stores. Which means very little pipe related materials compared to De La Concha which wasn't a lot to begin with but was decent.

 

mso489

Lifer
Feb 21, 2013
41,210
60,433
Glad they're hanging on at Pearl Street. I've been to the 42nd St. shop, with its great location, but it was really small, made the current Nat Sherman look large by comparison, with its seating and walk-in humidor. I do like the really big clock over the Nat Sherman door, as a landmark. Now we'll see if Barclay and Nat can weather the FDA regs. I'm banking on Chicago's Iwan Ries, with its ancient connections and long-established blends, to weather this well. I'm hoping they all hold fast.
On the rent-raising theme, my wife was shouldered out of her Greenwich Village apartment of thirty years by a real estate deal to turn the building into a single residence again, which then would cost ten million or something like it. Out she went, and the place was totally rehabbed and has been vacant for years, held strictly as some kind of real estate investment tax dodge. The hedge fund boys and girls and foreign investors have run out the creative folks and working population so the Village is becoming a tourist stop relating to its past not its present. No one cares where the hedge fund investors live, but they want to remember where the musicians, poets, artists, etc. lived.
Brooklyn has inherited the young working populations, until it is over-gentrified which is happening fast.

 

ssjones

Moderator
Staff member
May 11, 2011
18,317
11,070
Maryland
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I know it against the law, but I've never had an issue smoking at a Park in NYC, but I'm discreet. Last year in SOHO, I was smoking on the entrance steps. A police officer said to find somewhere else. I thanked him and moved along. I usually find an empty corner and steer clear of people. If that isn't possible, I abstain.

 

jaygreen55

Starting to Get Obsessed
Jan 29, 2015
171
176
Not closed yet. They'll be open until the 3rd week in October. They're having a big clearance sale now. 30% off on pipes under $300 and 40% off on more expensive pipes. Of course the 87/8% sales tax eats into the savings a bit. I scored a Castello poker and an Ardor author that are quite lovely

 

mso489

Lifer
Feb 21, 2013
41,210
60,433
'Used to be that every newsstand carried medium grade factory pipes and a variety of over-the-counter blends, and there were small tobacco shops every six or eight blocks at the most, in the city, and drugstores that carried pipes and leaf. I guess online retail fills in the gap these days, but it certainly is a change. Now a trip to the pipe shop most places is a pilgrimage. Even here on Forums we talk about planning trips to the pipe shop, like a day-trip, not so much walk-in. This is a most exotic activity.

 

papipeguy

Lifer
Jul 31, 2010
15,778
35
Bethlehem, Pa.
I worked up the street at Pfizer back in the late 1970's. That neighborhood had several nice pipe shops. I always bought my favorite blend at Lane's store on 42nd St across from Grand Central. I'm surprised that Barclay's lasted that long in that location.

 
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