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Throwback Thursday, Bloomingdale Edition

1/26/2017

2 Comments

 

1964 (Date of Painting Unknown): 2713 Broadway at West 103rd Street

By Caitlin Hawke
Picture
A painting of the gone but unforgotten Broadway Barber Shop owned by Kyriacos Demetriou
Owned for four decades by Mr. Kay, aka master tonsorialist Kyriacos Demetriou, the Broadway Barber Shop lasted for a century. This is why I put the incorporation date in the subtitle of the post.  When the shop finally closed, it was memorialized as the end of an era.  No one predicted the shaggy rage we're now in.

The perfectly preserved slice of Americana stood at 2713 Broadway between W. 103rd and 104th Streets until it was gifted to the Museum of the City of New York.

I know. You are kicking  yourself that this one, too, slipped through our fingers.  Why do we keep doing this?
Picture
"There's something you should consider before you begin -- my hair works hard and it plays hard." A cartoon by Ed Koren featuring the Broadway Barber Shop
At least it is preserved in the museum and in print. ​The shop made it into the New York Times in the the hirsute days of the Beatles, as this piece from 1964 charmingly describes.  And there was also the poignant obit here of Mr. Kay himself, telling tales out of school about Columbia president Dwight D. Eisenhower whose tips, alas, were inversely proportional to the area of bare pate.

It is also featured in the showstopping painting above. I am featuring it in this Throwback post for several reasons.  First, quite plainly, I cathect it. I am unsure whether the artist mashed up several storefronts with Mr. Kay's shop as the centerpiece or if those stores in it actually all stood side by side. Either way, the huge painting stopped me in my tracks.

​
I am also featuring it because it hangs in the home of a wonderful neighbor who I was lucky enough to work with through Bloomingdale Aging in Place.  A charming, brave woman, she's been in my thoughts a lot recently.  

We both fell in love with this painted slice of old Broadway. And by way of this post, I am sending her warm thoughts and my thanks for having shared with me this beauty on that day when we first met.  You made me a great cup of coffee, true to your word.

More on 2713 Broadway to come soon.
​

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2 Comments
Jimmy Roberts
1/26/2017 09:53:10 am

Thanks so much for this piece; it will evoke the warmest memories for anyone of a certain age. It makes me glad I was a regular customer of Mr. Kay's for a number of years. Here are some remarks he made to me, which have remained in my brain:
"No one knows how to give a 'flat-top' anymore."
"Do you know which men are the most sensitive and anxious about their haircuts? Bald or nearly bald men."
When I experiment with a beard, Kay scolded me for later shaving it off:
"You are an artist! An artist should have a beard!"
And finally, there's the image of him putting down his scissors every day, around noon, customers or not, and giving himself a quiet half-hour of lunch-—brought from home in a paper bag.

Reply
Jimmy Roberts
1/26/2017 09:55:58 am

One more thing-- i don't believe you mention the painter of that amazingly rendered slice of Broadway. Or did I miss it?

Reply



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