Kiosk: The Goods Are Odd (but Good)
NOVEMBER 19, 2010
You might find the perfect gift for that quirky someone at Kiosk—and you’ll definitely find something you haven’t seen before.
Amid the throngs of shiny SoHo shoppers carrying J. Crew bags, through a graffiti-and-sticker-marked door at 95 Spring Street and up a flight of plain-looking stairs, you won’t find a graphic design office, “secret” hipster bar or pop-up sample sale. There, instead, you’ll behold what Kiosk’s proprietor, Alisa Grifo (this NY Times article explains the method behind her madness), calls “Interesting things from interesting places.” Kiosk isn’t a new store (it opened in 2005), but it keeps adding converts who stumble upon the trove of eye-grabbing gifts and bizarre-but-bizarrely-useful gadgets from everywhere under the sun by accident.
The well-traveled staff are as cute as the merchandise, and their website provides a taste of what’s in store. On one visit the eclectic collection might include colorful composition notebooks from Japan, or candy from Iceland. There might be a pillow from Sweden. Cookies from Mexico. Bird whistles! A cheese slicer! Visitors who describe Kiosk as “somewhere between an art gallery and a garage sale” are spot-on. A few of the homemade-looking items—merchandise is rotated through by country of origin, one “exhibit” at a time—resemble something you’d find at the most random church bazaar. But some how you have to take a few home with you.
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