Shopping in Greenwich Village: The best stores and boutiques

The PPB's main focus is on couples looking to invigorate their sex lives with props, potions or costumes. The staff is friendly and knowledgeable, and the store carries a huge number of toys, starting with cheap bullet vibes and topping out with $100-plus extreme dildos. The company's been in business since 1972, which makes Pink Pussycat a trusted name for dommes and submissives alike.

You’ll be transported to Paris once you step inside this opulent bath-and-body shop. Rich burgundy carpets, gilded wallpaper, a gloriously huge chandelier and a mahogany desk that serves as the checkout area set the stage for the luxurious fragrances ($50–$300), candles ($20–$400), lotions, and soaps from brands like Diptyque and Annick Goutal. Curiosity cabinets house many of the store’s exclusives—the West Village outpost is the only location in the country to sell several items, including candles by Les Secrets Ladurée Paris.  

Murray’s Cheese has been New York City’s most famed and beloved, vast and varied dairy purveyor since it first opened in Greenwich Village decades ago. Today, it has additional locations in and outside of Manhattan, as well as availability via large retailers throughout the United States.  Here at home, you can still consult Murray’s top cheesemongers at its charming Bleecker Street shop, Grand Central outpost and Long Island City locale for samples, including proprietary cave-aged varieties prepared right here in town. They’ll also help you match your picks to charcuterie, jams, spreads and crackers for a veritable feast you can source all in one spot.   You can even learn a bit of the trade at Murray’s downtown flagship via burrata and mozzarella-making classes, or lessons on wine and cheese pairings. The classic address also hosts a mac and cheese pop-up, replete with that titular item, sandwich melts and cheese flights, among other menu items. 

This stationery store—with exposed brick, cheerful floral wallpaper and a pink overhanging lamp—exudes West Village charm. It’s owned by sisters Amy Swanson and Beth Salvini, whose family has been in the printing biz for three generations, and nearly everything is designed in-house and produced on an old Gutenberg-style press. Aside from note cards and stationery, GLP also offers notebooks, rubber stamps, labels, gift tags and striking wrapping paper ($3–$5 a sheet).

In operation since 1965, this friendly West Village institution sells all manner of fetish attire, as well as books, sex toys, magazines and plenty more.

This vintage mecca has been peddling men’s and women’s clothing and accessories since 1978, serving clientele as diverse as Alexa Chung, Marc Jacobs and Cyndi Lauper. Owner Laura Wills travels the world, scouting eclectic finds that span the 1950s to the 1990s, and organizes clothing racks by decade. Do you need sunglasses from the ’70s? How about a royal-wedding T-shirt from the 1980s? Head upstairs to check out higher-end specialty garments like men’s Moschino printed suit jackets ($595) and Hattie Carnegie satin cap-sleeve dresses with beading ($895). The boutique is transformed into a Halloween showcase for the month of October, and since the staff is made up almost entirely of stylists, it's a great place to put together a complete period look, including the era-appropriate wigs and accessories.

Any New Yorker will recognize EZ Pawn’s Roy Lichtenstein–inspired subway ads, and the fact that it’s a massive chain is, well, kind of creepy. But we came around when we learned that the store’s West Village location stocks überhip LES restaurant Beauty & Essex’s speakeasy-style (but faux) pawn shop entryway. The eatery’s storefront is elegantly tricked out to look like an operational pawn shop—complete with a cashier—but it’s all a ruse. So if you’re coveting one of the shiny Stratocasters, vintage cigar humidors or sets of Russian nesting dolls, head straight to source, conveniently located on 14th Street.

Owner Carol Kaas offers up whimsical cottage decor at practical prices in her cozy shop, where you’ll find decoupage glass paperweights, plates and trays, all decorated with European marine and bird ephemera culled from 18th- and 19th-century prints. It’s all handmade by Kass’s small team of artisans at a nearby West Village studio.

This San Francisco hatmaker expands with a second NYC location (the original is in Park Slope). Brick walls, a black tin ceiling, a leather lounge chair and Edison-style lightbulbs provide an old-timey vibe—fitting, since the company began in 1895. Even the merchandise harkens to the days of yore, with a wide range of fedora styles for ladies and gents, including short-brimmed leather ($100), satin-banded straw ($50) and summery plaid ($54) variations. Guys can don any number of newsboy caps ($38–$110), while women can get a sweet retro look with all manner of cloches ($34–$140). Goorin does contemporary styles too, as evidenced by wildly printed ball caps ($34) and trucker hats ($25). Gals should stop in for summer’s must-have floppy sun hat ($350–$490), such as our favorite red Panama straw version ($140). 

This tiny location explode with enough inner wear to rival a department store; bras and camisoles dangle overhead, and bras and thongs are splayed out on tables. The jam-packed racks are overwhelming but manageable, thanks to an accommodating staff that can help you sift through cotton duds to unearth $13 Jezebel sateen thongs and $34 Montelle bras.