10 replies to this topic

[John Martinson]

Hi,
I just recently found out Art Brown in New York is closing it's doors for good, their website domain name is for sale and will no longer conduct business. My gosh, how can this happen? Sounds very sad.
Could anyone find out any more news about Art Brown's closing?
Thanks,
John Martinson
Susan Wirth and Associates

Edited by John Martinson, 02 August 2013 - 12:57 PM.

[david i]

Hi,
I just recently found out Art Brown in New York is closing it's doors for good, their website domain name is for sale and will no longer conduct business. My gosh, how can this happen? Sounds very sad.
Could anyone find out any more news about Art Brown's closing?
Thanks,
John MartinsonSusan Wirth and Associates5300 W. Garfield Ave.Milwaukee, WI 53208

Hi John,

Heard about it via the NYC Pen Club mailing. Unfortunate development. Don't know more, as I tend not to hunt modern pens and am not in that loop.

regards

david

[welch]

Disaster!!!

I'm about to visit mid-town and meant to go to the shop. Now I MUST go.

[tenney]

Since, unfortunately, the domain name is owned by godaddy, could it be that Art just forgot to pay their bill? Is the B&M store still open? I last got email from them about ten days ago, so it is VERY unlikely that someone would send out an advertisement email and then knowingly let their domain name expire.

[welch]

Sadly, Warren and Marilyn are closing for good. The rent got them. (I just called Fountain Pen Hospital...the owning families are good friends) Art Browns is at 45th and 5th Avenue, the middle of midtown. Rents have gone crazy in most of Manhattan, but midtown is the worst.


Fountain Pen Hospital survives.

[welch]

How did this happen? [part 2]:

- Bizarrre land-value in Manhattan that allow only bank branches, Starbucks, wine stores, luxury housing, Class-A office buildings, hotels: Art Browns moved from a store on 46th and 5th to a smaller place on 45th and 5th about four years ago. Rent increases. In the Upper Westside, Big Nick's Hamburger and Pizza, open since the early '60s, just closed. A bank will move in. In my neighborhood in Upper Manhattan, our shoe repair closed, was replaced by a wine store; the wine store moved around the corner to replace the local Korean fresh-fruits and vegetable store; the owner of the wine store turned the old space into a very small restaurant serving very expensive meals (in small portions).

- Competition from new on-line stores with no rent; also no experience and no knowledge, but large following among new FP users who want to move from their Safari to a "flex" nib pen.

Edited by welch, 02 August 2013 - 07:32 PM.

[John Martinson]

1375471906[/url]' post='27382']
How did this happen? [part 2]:

- Bizarrre land-value in Manhattan that allow only bank branches, Starbucks, wine stores, luxury housing, Class-A office buildings, hotels: Art Browns moved from a store on 46th and 5th to a smaller place on 45th and 5th about four years ago. Rent increases. In the Upper Westside, Big Nick's Hamburger and Pizza, open since the early '60s, just closed. A bank will move in. In my neighborhood in Upper Manhattan, our shoe repair closed, was replaced by a wine store; the wine store moved around the corner to replace the local Korean fresh-fruits and vegetable store; the owner of the wine store turned the old space into a very small restaurant serving very expensive meals (in small portions).

- Competition from new on-line stores with no rent; also no experience and no knowledge, but large following among new FP users who want to move from their Safari to a "flex" nib pen.

I'll tell you, it feels like a death in the family after hearing about Art Brown. Too many people are looking at online businesses when they could go into a store (or a pen show, for that matter!) chat with staff and actually see, hold and potentially try pens. For us, who's been at the pen game for a while, it's part psychology; we like to get to know the person for find out what works for them, and help them pick what feels right to hold and write while writing. Not many stores do that anymore. Besides, looking a a computer screen, or on a YouTube video doesn't help. Same goes for musical instruments, too. But how many music stores are around anymore? Not many. It costs too much.

Here in the Midwest, three or four pen stores come to mind. Many of them have to change locations for the cost is too high, and some are barely hanging on. The only way they can make as close as they can to staying in the black week per week is by eBay sales. You need an online presence now.

Fred Krinke in Monrovia, Calfornia, who owns The Fountain Pen Shop (91 years in business!), is consistently online. Here's someone who's 86 years old, is on Twitter, Facebook, sends e-mail newsletters, and still performs repairs on his 100 year old lathe to restore vintage fountain pens. How many do you know still perform this quality service?

It goes to show that brick and mortar stores, and like pen shows too, are similar to living entities; here today with a valuable historic lifespan, then die because the don't flow like tributaries in time. Susan and I talk about that a lot, and it's why we try to emphasize the importance of taking that extra effort to visit a pen store, like Pendemonium in Ft. Madison, or the DC Supershow, which will start next week, August 8th to the 13th.

One last thing: If you can, subscribe to Pen World Magazine. They started as a pen hobby magazine with very little funding support and morphed into a luxury writing instrument omnibus with helpful articles on nibs, inks and great vintage pens. Some of the best people you'll find on the Fountain Pen Board here, are veteran contributors to this venerable periodical.

Yeah, go find a pen store, man. Google helps. Then save your bucks for a plane ticket, hotel and pen show. You won't forget what a memorable experience it'll be.

John Martinson
Susan Wirth and Associates
5300 W. Garfield Ave
Milwaukee, WI 53208

Edited by John Martinson, 03 August 2013 - 03:41 AM.

[Marsilius]

Fred Krinke in Monrovia, Calfornia, who owns The Fountain Pen Shop (91 years in business!), is consistently online. Here's someone who's 86 years old, is on Twitter, Facebook, sends e-mail newsletters, and still performs repairs on his 100 year old lathe to restore vintage fountain pens. How many do you know still perform this quality service?

A visit to Monrovia is worth the price of admission (well more, since it is free anyway!) just to chat with Fred and see him in action!

[marcshiman]

Rarer still are the B&M vintage pen stores. I haven't been back to Kensington to see what has happened to Pen Haven since Berton Heiserman passed away, but if we lose that store, we lose more than just a place to do pen commerce, but a real social institution at which you could meet all sorts of Mid-Atlantic pen collectors.


What other vintage B&M stores still exist?

[welch]

(1) The dazzling Marilyn Brown now works at Fountain Pen Hospital. 

 

(2) Art Brown's rent was up to about $50,000 a month. That's the cost of mid-town Manhattan, where many of the quirky old shops have been replaced by lunch places, expensive restaurants, fashion stores. 

[david i]

Glad to hear about the FPH connection. NYC's Upper West Side has, in my view, lost a great deal of its charm the last ten years. Indeed, small focused shops have been replaced by bank branches. Thus runneth the housing bubble and "quantitative easing", all piped though New York City.