The shop was opened by Ivan Karp, Andy Warhol's art dealer and one of the first gallery owners in Soho. He founded the gallery OK Harris in 1969 and added the cigar shop nearly 30 years later. A frosted glass door reading SMOKE ROOM opens one space onto the other.
"An avid cigar smoker," writes shop employee Gavin Baker in Everything's OK, "Ivan was searching for a smoking room once his gallery forbade the timeless ritual. Brilliantly, he converted the gallery’s supply closet into a cigar shop. In 1997, OK Cigars was born. Shortly after, Ivan partnered with Len Brunson, a blues guitarist and reluctant cigar connoisseur." (It was that or a doughnut shop, Gavin explains on video--Karp was a big fan of the Donut Pub on 14th Street. But cigars made sense, as the building was once home to a tobacco curing plant.)
Karp died in 2012 and the gallery announced that it would be closing on April 19, 2014, after 45 years in business.
Brunson continues to run the cigar shop, a haven for enthusiasts of "peculiar antique tobacciana," and "one of the few mom and pops" left in the increasingly corporatized neighborhood.
And here's a parting 1970 shot of the gallery in what LIFE called the "shabby SoHo area." (With thanks to Justin.)
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