Billy Leroy may have buried his tent on the Bowery last month, but the antiques dealer isn’t done snatching up oddities from around the world. He just got back from Glasgow, Scotland, where the seventh episode of the Travel Channel’s “Baggage Battles” was filmed. “It was a bidding bloodbath between me and my co-competitor Laurence Martin on a very historic item,” he wrote in an e-mail to The Local. “The Scottish people are really friendly and the single-malt whiskey is sublime.”
In this footage provided exclusively to The Local, Mr. Leroy, seated in front of a skull stash with his trademark cigar in hand, lets us in on the secret of getting a good deal. After the show premieres April 11 at 10 p.m., he’ll try his luck in Miami, during the filming of episode eight. “Boy, TV Land is a lot different then the Bowery,” he said. “I am starting to miss Bowery Misfits.”
Warning: If you didn’t enjoy the “Bodies” exhibit and get queasy at Freemans, you probably won’t dig this slideshow either. Photos: Vivienne Gucwa.
It’s been a real challenge finding shrunken heads, human skulls and mounted piranhas in the neighborhood since Obscura Antiques and Oddities closed in January. But search no more: the store selling all things weird opened in its new location at 207 Avenue A, near East 13th Street, on Saturday.
The new digs are nearly double the size of the previous store, meaning that owners Mike Zohn and Evan Michelson have more room to show off their wacky nicknacks, and fans of their reality show “Oddities” have more room to walk around. Read more…
Stephen Rex Brown Mike Zohn and Evan Michelson show off some just-purchased oddities in front of their new location at 207 Avenue A.After a rushed departure from their former space on East 10th Street, the owners of Obscura Antiques and Oddities are aiming to reopen at a new, more spacious location at 207 Avenue A by the end of February.
Fresh from a visit to a Hell’s Kitchen building that yielded a Tibetan Kapala skull-cup, headhunter’s axe, a small replica of an electric chair, and old handcuffs, Mike Zohn and Evan Michelson touted their new store, which is nearly double the size of the previous location.
“There is room to breathe,” said Ms. Michelson. “It’s like a dream come true.” Read more…
