Wednesday, June 19, 2019

The Gem Spa Zoltar is alive and well and telling fortunes an L-train ride away in Bushwick


[Zoltar as seen in — sob — December]

In late May, Zoltar — everyone's favorite Animatronic Fortune Telling Machine — was removed from its post of nearly seven years outside Gem Spa on Second Avenue at St. Mark's Place.

Unfortunately, as you may have sensed by now, this Zoltar will NOT be returning. The official word from Gem Spa: "The Zoltar machine was removed by its owner due to our scaled-back hours to prevent vandalism."

Turns out that this Zoltar remains in the five boroughs. We've had several reports of sightings of Zoltar in... Bushwick, specifically on Myrtle and Central Avenue. The photo below is from EV resident Grant showing Zoltar ready to ply his wisdom trade outside OMG Pizza ...



... and for further documentation...


We did compare the graffiti markings on the Gem Spa and the Bushwick Zoltar and can confirm the two are one in the same. While a move to Bushwick seems a little, oh, 2014, we hope that Zoltar is happy and can win over the new neighbors.

Zoltar first arrived at Gem Spa on Sept. 23, 2012. A tribute will follow here at a later date.

4 comments:

Giovanni said...

I always knew that somewhere deep down, Zoltar was actually a hipster.

Anonymous said...

Gem Spa (did you know it was actually Gems Spa way back in the 60's?) seems to be cleaning out or cleaning up little by little. The very thought of seeing Gem(s) Spa disappear from this corner is distressing. Perhaps we will see what is going on soon.

Anonymous said...

Gem Spa has stopped selling newspapers and magazines. Depressing! I used to rely on them to get the Sunday Times on Saturday night.

Anonymous said...

The End is near.