Antiques Row or Antiques District (Atlantic Avenue)

Brooklyn’s Atlantic Avenue between Hoyt and Bond streets has been dubbed “Antique Row” or “Antiques Row” (or “Antiques District”) since at least 1975. About 30 shops on Atlantic Avenue sold antiques in the 1970s, but that number dwindled to about 12 by 2008.
 
       
Atlantic Avenue Betterment Association
Atlantic Avenue came into prominence in the 1800’s with stylish apparel for ladies and gents. By the 1930s, an influx of Middle Eastern immigrants opened restaurants and specialty food shops, many of which are still run by descendants of the original merchants.
 
In the 1970s, choice antique shops began to cluster, establishing the Avenue as a hot spot for connoisseurs. The 1990s ushered in an era of fine contemporary designers who transformed Atlantic Avenue into the “new destination for modern furniture, lighting and rugs as well as antiques” (The New York Times). As we enter the 21st Century, boutiques showing eclectic contemporary clothing and accessories are settling in.
 
21 July 1975, New York (NY) Times, “Going Out Guide,” pg. 22:
...Revolutionary War and other historic sites, and ethnic communities and shops from Atlantic Avenue’s antique row to Middle Eastern bazaars
 
New York (NY) Times
NEW YORKERS & CO.; The Antiquing of the South Bronx, uh, SoBro
By THOMAS J. LUECK
Published: Sunday, April 10, 1994
(...)
Now, in a small but flourishing antiques district, most buildings on the block have been renovated or at least occupied, and the strip’s merchants have an intense rivalry with their competitors on Atlantic Avenue and other long-established antiques enclaves.
 
New York (NY) Times
A Bronx Antiques Row Brings Hope for Renewal
By ALAN S. OSER
Published: Sunday, December 29, 1996
(...)
Borough President Fernando Ferrer speaks of the strip as the ‘‘gateway to the Bronx,’’ a small-scale version of the Atlantic Avenue antiques district in Brooklyn, between Brooklyn Heights and Cobble Hill.
 
New York (NY) Times
PLAYING IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD
By ANDREA DELBANCO
Published: Sunday, August 29, 1999
Treasures and tunnels all along one avenue? The Atlantic Avenue Betterment Association is putting on an ‘‘Antiques Row’’ sidewalk treasure hunt in addition to a tour of a long abandoned subway tunnel that was built in 1844 (a view from that year is below).
 
Today, vendors will line up carts alongside the more than 30 antiques shops that line Atlantic Avenue and open themselves up for shopping, snooping and searching for treasure clues.
(...)
Atlantic Avenue’s Treasure Hunt and Subway Tunnel Tour, today, noon to 6 P.M.; Atlantic Avenue between Hoyt and Bond Streets; $15 in advance for tunnel tour; (718) 246-0024.
 
Google Books
Outdoor Escapes New York City
By Theodore W. Scull
Guilford, CT: Falcon
2003
Pg. 44:
From the Heights, you can divert to the Middle Eastern neighborhood and antiques row on Atlantic Avenue before continuing through downtown Brooklyn along Fulton Street, with its mix of age-old business and those catering to today’s inner-city population.
   
Brownstoner
July 17, 2008
Atlantic’s Antique Row Heading Towards Obsolescence?
The string of antique shops lining Atlantic Avenue between Hoyt and Bond is becoming a thing of the past.
(...)
“There were easily 30 of them.” Benjamin notes that most of the stores carried Victorian or turn-of-the-century antiques, which he believes have fallen out of favor with many consumers who now look for mid-century pieces. About 10 antique stores still remain on the street, and Benjamin thinks there will always be vestiges of the old district even though it’s not considered a destination retail strip in the way it once was.
 
The Brooklyn Paper
August 18, 2008 / News / Not Just Nets / Carroll Gardens–Cobble Hill
Antiques get old on Atlantic Avenue
By Sarah Portlock
The Brooklyn Paper
Even the antiques along Atlantic Avenue are getting too old for the hip, new neighborhood.

A quarter-century ago, the street was an antiques destination and home to 34 stores selling Victorian-era furniture, 1970s-era rotary phones, and everything in between — and homeowners citywide descended on Atlantic Avenue to fill their brownstones.
 
But tastes have migrated to mid-century modern (and Ikea-modern). Ten years ago, 21 of those stores remained. Today, there are 12.
 
“Atlantic Avenue is dying as an antiques center,” said Bob Simari, owner of Repeat Performance Antiques, which has been at 377-A Atlantic Ave. for 30 years. “It’s sad, but it’s a fact of life.”
 
am New York
City Living: Boerum Hill
Tuesday December 23, 2008 2:21 PM By Rolando Pujol
(...)
Atlantic Avenue, the commercial center of the neighborhood, is the home of “Antique Row,” a unique cluster of antique shops, in addition to a host of African and Islamic stores between Third and Fourth avenues.
 
New York (NY) Times
Local Stop | Atlantic Avenue
A Street Where Old Is New, Again
By EMILY S. RUEB
Published: November 12, 2009
Fifty years ago, the shops along Atlantic Avenue between Hoyt and Bond Streets in Brooklyn earned the block its nickname, Antiques Row, but with the rising rents, many of the sellers up and vanished. In the last five years, however, a new class of creative entrepreneur has moved onto the avenue with a stylish take on the same mission: using old things for new purposes.