Obscura Antiques & Oddities (CLOSED)

Entering this dark slip of a shop is a bit like getting sucked into an Edgar Allen Poe poem, or maybe just a New York steampunk fantasy. Since 1991, owner Mike Zohn has scoured antique stores and garage sales at the crack of dawn for the sort of wonderfully peculiar stuff you wish they’d feature on Antiques Roadshow. “The things I get have a certain look or feel to them—you just know,” says Zohn. “Everything is either odd or off base, and sometimes both.” That distinction applies to aviator goggles, grizzly-bear skulls, teeth molds, taxidermied birds, Victorian apparel and old cameras. Each item has a story, and Zohn will tell you all about it, whether you’re here to buy or just to add something to your wish list. Obscura will even work with you on a wedding registry, so you and your partner can count that moose hoof that doubles as an ashtray among your most precious shared possessions.