Photos 31 Jul 2011 07:25 am
2nd Floor Psychics
- As any follower of this blog knows, I am a fan of the thousands of Psychics that fill New York’s stores and streets. I have always been intrigued with them, and only when I’d read a New Yorker article about 12 years ago (I haven’t been able to relocate it) did I learn what those people were doing in there and how they were paying their rent. (Mostly selling crystals.)
Lately, all those storefront shops have been moving upstairs. I’m sure the rents are enormous for them to cover and available space is probably a problem. There seems to be a predilection, these days, for the Psychics to move on up to the 2nd floor of buildings. This means they have to get attention downstairs – passing out flyers, having big signs that you could trip over, and taking out cheap newspaper ads.
I photographed a few of these 2nd floor psychics and present them here.
1This is one store I noticed up on 46th Street as I was coming home from the theater.
2
This is all that can be seen of one I shot on Prince Street a couple of weeks ago.
Upstairs are apartment windows. It’s not a commercial space.
3
This is the entrance to one on 29th Street and Sixth Avenue.
I’ve never seen the street floor open.
3
Here’s the upstairs store of the 29th Street Psychic.
4
This is the entrance to a shop on Fifth Avenue and 30th Street.
5
It leads upstairs to this shop.
6
This sign greets you on 29th Street and Lexington Avenue.
7
Upstairs they’ve designed it to look like the street floor restaurant
is part of the business. The place just looks huge.
8
Here’s their upstairs sign which I find very attractive.
9
This is actually the first of the 2nd floor psychics that I noticed. About five years ago.
It’s located on Varick (Seventh Ave.) and Houston Street. A busy street corner in Soho.
10
Though, in fact, I didn’t really notice that it was a Psychic’s shop.
I saw the blue, and I read the “Mystic Visions” but I never put two and two together.
11
The entrance on Houston next to an uptown subway stop.
There are quite a few others. You just have to keep looking up.
on 31 Jul 2011 at 11:46 am 1.Elliot Cowan said …
On the main drag near us the psychic is a psygig.
I’m sure it’s the same thing just spelled incorrectly.