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If you can no longer stand the New York of today, fed up with the sorts of issues that have plagued the city in recent years (rats! Trash everywhere! No restaurant reservations!), a time-traveling experience might sound idyllic.
Although feats of magic yet elude us, a relatively new shop in Dimes Square (a micro-neighborhood that gained attention during the pandemic whose countercultural aesthetic many believe to have ironically contributed to some of the city's most pressing issues) hopes to provide the public with just that: transport New Yorkers to a different era by way of products and experiences that define times of yore.
In fact, upon entering Biggie's Bodega at 139 Division Street, you'll immediately feel like you've stepped back in time. Although labeling itself as an antique smoke store, the space is more like a curiosity shop, filled with the sort of paraphernalia that you can't keep your hands off but don't necessarily even know if you need in your apartment just yet. That's all intentional.
"My goal for the space is simple: I want to transport you to a different time period as soon as you step through the door," says Sammy Levin, who opened the store with her partner Derek Nussbaum in April of this year. "We hope to be a part of the resurgence in antique shops in New York City."
But the pair's intentions are even more specific than that, drawing particular attention to smoke culture: why it matters, how it has changed throughout the years and how the act of smoking itself is perceived in a time of e-cigarettes and weed legalization.
"Our goal for Biggie's Bodega is to revive mid century smoking culture with a new take on the 'smoking' world now," said the owner. "With the rise of marijuana smokers and the normalcy involved in smoking at home, we hope to bring back timeless home sets, such as table ashtrays and lighter combos or even standing ashtrays."
Whether a smoker or not, you'd be remiss not to visit the downtown shop, even to simply gaze at the cornucopia of products on display, which go beyond smoking-related gadgets and include a 1960s fridge storing eclectic sodas from around the world, typewriters, vintage magazines, 1950s tobacco tins, old-fashioned snacks and more.
"To us, tobbacania, antique smoking pieces, are functional home art pieces," says Levin, who also fixes any broken product that customers bring in. "Even if you don't smoke, why not have a beautiful vintage lighter for your candles or burning sage?"
As for the name of the destination, it's an ode to the couple's Pit Bull, Biggie, who is usually freely roaming the space as customers drift in and out.
Clearly, the concept of Biggie's Bodega resonates as the store is frequented by all sorts of New Yorkers, from Gen Zers looking for visually striking TikTok content to, according to the owner herself, "the older mid-70s crowd who comes in to reminisce." After all, what is New York if not a great melting pot of folks feeling nostalgic for the city that once was and younger citizens turning the "old" new again via social media filters?