On Sunday, Billy Leroy shuttered Billy’s Antiques & Props, the tent on East Houston Street that will be replaced by a two-story building. The store’s most expensive item in the days before it closed was a $3,500 Coney Island boardwalk sign, but its keeper said he would sell some pricier merchandise at the new location: “The tent limits the price we can charge. You can’t charge $5,000 for something a boutique could easily get. It’s going to change. It’s going to be an upscale Billy’s.”
Before packing up and heading off to vacation in Paris (he’s half-French), Mr. Leroy showed The Local his five favorite relics of the old neighborhood – places that might just be considered oddities or antiques in what he said was a new era of mom jeans and flip-flops.
