Friday, June 28, 2019

Will you buy a Gem Spa T-shirt?

As we've been reporting, the venerable Gem Spa on Second Avenue and St. Mark's Place, has struggled of late, in part due to its temporary ban on selling cigarettes and lottery tickets and various landlord issues ... yesterday, Parul Patel, who is running the shop for her father Ray, the owner since 1986, took to Instagram to announce the upcoming sale of Gem Spa T-shirts.

Commenters liked the idea — especially one with just the Gem Spa logo. (No to the fedora option!)

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

Gem(s) Spa. Take a look at a 6o's photo when it was called GEMS SPA, not Gem Spa. This link is a wonderful look back at this EV landmark.
http://vanishingnewyork.blogspot.com/2013/05/at-gem-spa.html

Anonymous said...

If they put the shirts out front, they'll sell in a flash.

Anonymous said...

bring them on! i will buy!

Anonymous said...

Just the plain logo.

Patricia Kennealy Morrison said...

I KNEW it used to be Gems Spa! I was beginning to think I’d just been too stoned to read it right.

Anonymous said...

Still don't understand how the ciggy ban is connected to the loss of newspapers...

blue glass said...

sure, 100% cotton would be nce

logo
store front
sign

i prefer photo to artwork

whatever gets most votes

Gojira said...

Yep. Bring 'em on, and yes, just the plain old logo!

Anonymous said...

Just the words "GEM SPA" thanks! Everyone who's anyone will "get" it!

PS to 10:50am: There's no connection between sales of cigs and sales of newspapers. Landlord wants "cleaner" look out front, thus get rid of Zoltar & newspapers. Separately, sales of cigs to minor gets them banned from selling BOTH lottery tickets AND tobacco products for SIX MONTHS, which is a big deal financially.

Anonymous said...

Sad about the landlord wanting it cleaned up. Zoltar should of made the cut. EV looks like a mall these days and that is what the kids want I guess.

Giovanni said...

I vote for the logo, but with the addition of an illustration of an egg cream, with a pretzel, and some foam running down the side of the glass..

At some point when they redid their signage, Gems Spa became Gem Spa. The store name came from the names of the two owners wives, plus one ex wife: Gladys, Etta, and Miriam. I am sure I have seen an old picture of the signage with an apostrophe in the name, and that at one time it read Gem’s Spa. It makes little sense that a store run by literate people who sold newspapers and magazines would have left off the apostrophe.

Anonymous said...

" EV looks like a mall these days and that is what the kids want I guess."

I'm hard pressed to believe that it's what "the kids" want. I think it's what developers want.

Anonymous said...

as one of “the kids” i can tell you it is absolutely not what we want

Anonymous said...

I think we can agree that developers don't see Zoltar or selling newspapers as the "image" that THEY want to present to their "marks"... uh, the people who will idiotically over-pay to live here.

Developers have no taste, and they are training a whole generation of renters/condo buyers to ALSO not have taste - or worse, to think that BAD taste is GOOD taste.

Abfus said...

Photo is awesome