Love Saves The Day

Love Saves The Day aka LSD on Second Avenue at the corner of East 7th Street was founded by Leslie & Richard Herson in 1966. When we photographed this kitsch-filled vintage shop in 2001 for our book “Store Front: The Disappearing Face of New York” we also interviewed Richard who told us that the store was “an institution and many of my customers who don’t live in the neighborhood anymore still come back because I carry very unique items.”

The shop also became well known as it was featured in the movie “Desperately Seeking Susan”, starring Madonna who traded a vintage jacket off her back for a pair of boots she saw in the window. Sadly, Love Saves the Day closed its NYC location in 2009 after its rent was raised from $5,000 to $15,000 a month but still maintains a shop in New Hope, PA.

Defonte’s Sandwich Shop in Red Hook, Brooklyn

Defonte’s Sandwich Shop in Red Hook, Brooklyn was founded in 1922 by Nick Defonte who emigrated to New York from Mori di Bari, Italy. Since the beginning it has specialized in serving large Italian heroes at first to the longshoremen who worked on the piers along the Brooklyn waterfront and now to everyone who makes the journey to its free-standing green-and-red-painted brick building.  

We recently visited @defontes1922 and met the third-generation owner who told us they are celebrating their 100 year anniversary this year and had an enormous eggplant 🍆 parmigiana sandwich which was absolutely delicious. All the sandwiches are huge and come in one-third or one-half hero sizes on fresh Italian bread 🥖. 

To watch our visit to Defonte’s and our visit to a custom neon sign shop @moonsignnyc nearby please check out our JamesandKarla YouTube channel, see direct link below & in bio and IG story. • 

Link: https://youtu.be/heWP1_xCiHs

Happy Record Store Day! Village Revival Records on Bleecker Street & Executive Producer Steve Rosenthal

Happy Record Store Day! Today, we helped support some amazing independently-owned vinyl record shops in NYC including Village Revival Records on Bleecker Street. @villagerevivalrecordsnyc was founded by Jamal Jararah over 32 years ago and today he had the full line of #RecordStoreDay releases available at his shop. 

We were lucky enough to not only score a copy of an exclusive #RSD release by Blondie of “Sunday Girl” at Village Revival but also meet and speak with Steve Rosenthal, who mixed the “Sunday Girl” demo and is one of the executive producers of the limited edition EP. (2nd photo of Karla and Steve Rosenthal outside Village Revival ).  • Taken from the band’s multi-million-selling album Parallel Lines, “Sunday Girl” was originally released in 1979 and was the follow-up single to the band’s number one hit single, “Heart of Glass,” and was a UK number one and a top 10 hit around Europe. • @blondieofficial states that  “Exactly why the song became Sunday Girl, I am not sure, other than @christein and I had a silly kitty named Sunday Man. Also, I was born on a Sunday…,” reminisces Debbie Harry about the song.  

• To watch our YouTube livestream visit to help support independently-owned record stores today (swipe left for 3rd photo of the Blondie mural by Shepard Fairey @obeygiant where we started our livestream with Hudson wearing his headphones) please visit our JamesandKarla YouTube channel, see direct link below & in bio and IG story. 

• Full video: https://youtu.be/urPPFw4tOPs

House of Oldies #recordstoreday

Today is #RecordStoreDay and we are going to be shopping at some of our favorite vinyl record shops in Greenwich Village and East Village today but will miss the House of Oldies shop on Carmine Street, which sadly closed in 2020 due to the pandemic. The owner, Bob Abramsom opened the shop in 1969 and since its beginning it sold only vinyl records & specialized in rare and out of print vinyl records from the 1950s to 1970s. (Swipe left for 2nd photo of Bob inside his shop).

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When we interviewed Bob for our book “Store Front II- A History Preserved” in 2010 he told us that that he “got the bulk of his current inventory years ago from record stores that were going out of business. I bought all new records, not used ones and put everything away.”

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Please follow our crate digging adventure today on our JamesandKarla channel.

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#vinyl #vinylcommunity #vinylrecords

#vinylrecord #rsd #rsd2022 #record #recordstore #records #vinylcollector #vinylcollection #vinyladdict #oldies #recordcollector #vinyljunkies #vinyljunkies #vinyljunky #recordcollection #recordshop

Phil’s Pizza

Yesterday, we shared that our rescue dog Hudson’s favorite food is pizza 🍕 and one of the many places where we have gotten @hudsonpittienyc a slice is Phil’s Pizza which was founded in 1970. 

Even though Hudson was more interested in their pizza, we especially loved their amazing signage and especially how the flourish in the lettering connected the two ZZ’s in PIZZA! 

• • • • • #storefront #jamesandkarla #pizza #pizzalover #pizzalovers #pizzalove #pizzeria #pizzatime #pizzagram #pizzapizzapizza #pizzaislife #pizzamaker #pizzamaker

Custom neon sign made of our dog Hudson

We had a custom neon sign made of our dog Hudson with his favorite food in the world…a slice of pizza. The amazing artist who created this gorgeous piece is Wayne Heller, who is the owner and sign maker at @moonsignnyc in Red Hook Brooklyn. MoonSign specializes in designing and fabricating signs, graphics, visual ephemera and lighting projects. 

Wayne works with both artists and commercial clients to strategize concepts and provide art direction, technical drawings, fabrication, execution and installation. Wayne not only captured beautifully the essence of our dog Hudson in neon  but also suggested to us that the clear blue neon would be perfect to use as it would not overwhelm our studio apartment when lit.  

• We visited Wayne at MoonSign for the reveal of our “Hudson Pizza Neon” and also had a chance to speak with him about how he became interested in neon and the process of how he brought our Hudson Pizza design to life from sketch to finished piece. Wayne also showed us some of the other unique pieces he has worked on including a vintage “Florist” neon sign which had hung outside a Chelsea Florist shop for years (swipe left for 4-6th photos) which he is bringing back to life in neon.  

•  To watch our livestream visit to Red Hook, Brooklyn to visit MoonSign please see direct link below & in bio and IG story: https://youtu.be/heWP1_xCiHs

Tax Day in the United States

In honor of Tax Day in the United States, we are highlighting this check cashing store in NYC. April 18th is the filing deadline to submit a 2021 tax return or to submit an extension to file and pay tax owed.  • • • • • • #storefront #jamesandkarla  #disappearingfaceofnewyork #checkcashing #signage #ig_signage #signsofthetimes #signssignseverywheresigns