Nicky's Magazines

VANISHED

Back in 2008, the great Nikos magazine shop on the corner of 6th Avenue and 11th Street shuttered. It was replaced by Nicky's magazine shop, which was far less great, but still had something going for it. Now Nicky's has vanished.

Reader John Charles Nuss sent in these photos of the closed shop.



When Nikos shuttered, after 31 years on that corner, people were devastated. The place was a dusty warren of un-glossy magazines--odd titles, obscure stacks, everything. Back then, as I peered into the window one last time, an older man stepped up and peered in with me. He summed it up, saying, "You could get anything here. I knew this would happen. It was only a matter of time."

When Nikos turned into Nicky's, I said, "I doubt we'll ever see Daedalus, Dislocate, Lacanian Ink, or the New York Quarterly in this new place." But I was wrong. While Nicky's sold mostly mainstream magazines, they kept a few shelves in the back for the hardcore stuff--and by hardcore I mean intellectual and literary. Usually, you could find some salty Villager back there, muttering and shuffling through Lapham's Quarterly or Lacanian Ink. That back section was a small, semi-secret oasis.



I kept going to Nicky's, stopping in to buy a magazine whenever I passed by, probably because it felt, in some way, like a continuation of Nikos. Maybe it felt that way for a lot of people, because since Nicky's closed just over a week ago, I keep getting emails, Tweets, and Facebook messages about it. People are upset.

Alex in NYC wrote about this closure: "Like so many other fixtures of a once-thriving, healthy community, [the old Nikos] was snuffed out like a fucking candle by a landlord's greed. In its place, a new but strikingly indistinct newspaper emporium opened. For the last few years, that business has anemically held court on a spot previously renowned as a nuanced haven for the literate and knowledge-hungry. Well, balls to all that now... Once again, the neighborhood loses."

Across the street from the shuttered Nicky's is the shuttered Famous Roio's Pizza. And so this crossroads has become a dead zone, waiting for the Chase banks, Starbucks, and yogurt shops that can pay the ever climbing rents.


in Nicky's window

Previously:
Nikos closed
Nicky's moved in