Spanish Kicks Company Camper Christens New ‘Lab’ on the Bowery
It’s settled. You can finally purchase $285 sneakers on the Bowery. And right beside the Bowery Mission, no less. The Spanish footwear company, Camper, has you covered.
The brand finally deposed the “coming soon” window skin from the facade of 221 Bowery last week to reveal its trendy CamperLab concept, a store we first told you about back in the fall. Behind that floor-to-ceiling window is basically a white-box space where shoes are meticulously displayed like art in a gallery.
Unlike its SoHo sibling, this Camper outpost joins the ranks of the more “progressive” CamperLab offshoot. It’s essentially an incubator space for less mainstream fashions, and is the only one of its kind in the States. (The other location is in London.) The new store unseated Chair Up, the restaurant supply company which relocated around the corner to Delancey Street last summer after an approximate 600% rent hike. (But not before a WWII-era hand grenade was found in the basement.) They had been on the Bowery since 1999.
Camper was founded by Lorenzo Fluxà Rosselló in 1975 after inheriting a shoe factory from his father. They apparently didn’t make inroads into the American market until 2000.
How long before that window is broken…?
Recent Stories
Blockchain Company Anchors Sunshine Cinema Replacement Tower
The glassy office building that replaced the beloved Sunshine Cinema has its first tenant. And an anchor, at that. The arrival of San Francisco-based Solana Labs comes mere weeks after the sidewalk bridge outside 141 East Houston came down (thereby freeing Yonah Schimmel from bondage). Solana Labs, a blockchain company, reportedly signed a lease for […]
Man Shot and Killed on Q Train at Canal Street in Unprovoked Attack
A straphanger was shot and killed Sunday morning on a Q train just off the Manhattan Bridge in what investigators are calling an unprovoked attack. The 48-year-old victim, whose name is not released, was shot in the chest around 11:40am yesterday while riding a northbound Q train that was pulling into the Canal Street station, […]
Demolition Begins at Fire-Stricken Dim Sum Palace Building in Chinatown
Demolition started this week at 6 Chatham Square, which, until this month, housed neighborhood favorite Dim Sum Palace. Early morning May 1, a fire in the kitchen spread throughout the building, triggering a five-alarm response from the fire department. All told, five firefighters were injured battling the inferno over several hours. And according to Red […]
Eldridge Street Development Sells for $19.24M
A major real estate deal to report on Eldridge Street. It took three years, but the eight-story mixed-use building at 165 Eldridge traded last week for $19.25 million. Just under the initial 2019 asking price of $21 million. Buyer of record is Meng Lee and Karim Elsayyad of FREO Management. The transaction is not yet […]
The ‘Barrier Reefs’ Coming to Clinton Street Bike Lane
The Department of Transportation has chosen a winner to decorate the traffic barrier protecting the Clinton Street bike line. The city agency awarded artist Alison Cynamon as part of the ongoing Barrier Beautification mural project. The concrete slab runs from Delancey Street to South Street; an 840-foot stretch with roughly 1,980 square-feet of canvas to […]
