Second time around: A Repeat Performance pops up at 3rd and B'Zaar

Photo by Stacie Joy

A Repeat Performance, featuring the work of 30 local designers, vintage vendors and artists, is the latest pop-up market extravaganza for the 3rd and B'Zaar space at 191 E. Third St. between Avenue A and Avenue B.

Here's more about the concept this time around (and in case that signage looks familiar!):

A Repeat Performance Market is a tribute to the past days of the East Village that we cherish so much: the artists, creatives and small business owners that made this neighborhood what it is.

The sign in our window used to proudly hang on 1st Ave at the shop A Repeat Performance which was open for over 30 years. Sadly, this shop and many other East Village classics have shut their doors for one reason or another.

3rd & B’zaar strives to bring support to small businesses like these that need a fresh start or are just getting started by offering space in a brick and mortar shop at an affordable rent.

A Repeat Performance, the bric-a-brac shop at 156 First Ave., closed in July 2019 after 39 years in business. The sign became available ... and the fine folks at East Village Vintage Collective on 12th Street became the proud new owners. (EVVC co-owner Maegan Hayward is a founder of 3rd and B'Zaar.)

The market is open through May 29... with hours of 1-7 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday. Check out the 3rd and B'Zaar Instagram account for updates and features on the participating vendors.

The peaceful setting of Sharon Jane Smith’s 1st Avenue garden

Text and photos by Daniel Efram

For Sharon Jane Smith, her 39 years helping to run the vintage treasure-laden A Repeat Performance until July 2019 (on First Avenue between Ninth and 10th streets) brought her much joy and inspiration. She adored her business partner Beverly Bronson (who died in 2018) and loved the quirky characters who happened across her view at the shop.

Smith lives next door to the former shop and has a beautiful garden teeming with zen fare that friends of the shop would appreciate. 

It was wonderful to run into Smith recently and get invited in to tour her apartment, complete with a garden with many tributes to Bronson. 

Upon walking through the studio, she points at the window door, which leads to the peaceful setting of stones and bric-a-brac.

“Just as I was preparing to empty the shop ... I was invited to empty an apartment in Village View,” she said. “An astounding collection of stones from the Sahara Desert were in that apartment. How could I turn down that opportunity of a lifetime? I did sell many of those stones because, of course, I have a small apartment, but some worked their way into my garden, where they seemed quite at home. They are the remnants of a culture approximately 6,000 years old with no written language, but the people spoke clearly in their reverence for stone.” 

The enthralling setting gave way to her trademark wry wit.

“The spirit of the garden developed over a period of nine years while attending to an elderly gentleman who had scouted me at A Repeat Performance. He watched me work and I watched him get old.” 

Smith hopes to complete the bulk of “The Confessions of The Shopkeepers,” her nonfiction manuscript, by Valentine’s Day 2022.

A new home for the A Repeat Performance sign

Back on Wednesday, we noted that the old A Repeat Performance sign from the now-closed bric-a-brac shop at 156 First Ave. needed a new home.

The fine folks who run the East Village Vintage Collective on 12th Street are now the proud new owners. No word yet what they have planned for the classic sign.

A Repeat Performance closed last July after 39 years in business.

[Updated] Does anyone want the classic old A Repeat Performance sign from 1st Avenue?

[EVG photo from March 2019]

Updated 5 p.m. The sign has a new home!

A Repeat Performance closed this past July 31 on First Avenue between Ninth Street and 10th Street after 39 years in business.

Proprietor Sharon Jane Smith said that it was simply time to move on. (Store founder Beverly Bronson had died in May 2018.)

Amy Van Doran, who runs Modern Love Club next door, is currently in custody of that great old A Repeat Performance sign. She'd like to give it to any resident who may have an interest in this classic EV signage. She'll be at the shop (156 First Ave.) today from noon to 7 p.m. (She does warn that the sign is larger than it looks!)



Previously on EV Grieve:
• A Repeat Performance, until July 31

• A new storefront for A Repeat Performance, and word about the next tenant

• Today is the last day for A Repeat Performance

Today is the last day for A Repeat Performance

[EVG photo from March]

As we first reported back in March... A Repeat Performance on First Avenue between Ninth Street and 10th Street is closing today after 39 years in business.

Proprietor Sharon Jane Smith has said that it's simply time to move on. Store founder Beverly Bronson died in May 2018.


[Photo of Smith by Daniel Efram]

Document Journal has a piece on Smith's ongoing shop project — chronicling the stories of people who have shopped here through the years.

Currently, Smith is writing a piece titled “Confessions of a Shopkeeper,” eliciting the characters and circumstances that she’s encountered throughout the past 38 years. Hoping to first have it presented as a performed theatre piece, Smith plans on later publishing the script into a book. “Often it’s poignant situations that present themselves in this shop. It’s not all the grand, dramatic stuff of New York life. It’s actually more subtle than that. It’s the little interactions between New Yorkers.” “It’s not fair if I go to my grave knowing all of this and not sharing it,” said Smith.

The shop’s alluringly diverse collection of items is deemed inevitable by Smith. “Anything and anyone can end up in New York really if you think about it,” she said. “All the people who drift in and out of New York. What things they carry with them, what little treasures they hide.”

Jewelry designer Lisa Linhardt, a friend and former neighbor of Smith's, will be moving into the space after A Repeat Performance.

Previously on EV Grieve:
A Repeat Performance, until July 31

A new storefront for A Repeat Performance, and word about the next tenant

A new storefront for A Repeat Performance, and word about the next tenant

[Photo Saturday by Dan Scheffey]

A Repeat Performance received a new storefront last weekend.

As we previously reported, the bric-a-brac shop at 156 First Ave. between Ninth Street and 10th Street is closing on July 31 after 39 years in business.

Store founder Beverly Bronson died last May. Sharon Jane Smith (pictured below), who has worked at the shop since 1987, has said that it's time to move on...


[Photo Tuesday by Steven]

So why a new storefront for a business that's closing in a few months?

Smith told EVG correspondent Steven this week that her friend, jewelry designer Lisa Linhardt, will be moving into the space after A Repeat Performance closes this summer. "So it’s not going to be the disaster that people think," Smith said.

Linhardt originally had a shop right next door, starting in 2008, but moved to Mott Street in 2013. She misses the neighborhood.

Previously on EV Grieve:
A Repeat Performance, until July 31

A Repeat Performance, until July 31

[EVG photo; all other shots by Daniel Efram]

Photos and text by Daniel Efram

The wonderful East Village bric-a-brac store, A Repeat Performance on First Avenue between Ninth Street and 10th Street, will be closing on July 31 after 39 years in business.

In our ever-changing neighborhood, during an era of constant discussion surrounding the influx of short-lived businesses and the disappearance of some seminal mainstays, it is time for yet another of the latter to make its way into our memories and off of the streets.

A Repeat Performance has been a gem of a shop for quite some time. With its eclectic collections of old-school cigarette lighters, books, film slides, glassware, and recently even an old hand-cranked washing machine, it has provided me with never-ending escapism for my years in the vicinity.





The shop holds more significance than simply a reminder of what the neighborhood used to mean. A Repeat Performance has been perhaps the longest-running museum of the non-essential in my daily walk. Need an accordion, a slide viewer or some opera glasses? You may find them here.

It's a reminder of our family attics and basements, and the stuff we may have had to get rid of for lack of space, but still admire for the quality. This store is a reminder of days gone by, when artists could survive selling a uniquely artful selection of ephemera and maybe even meet a friend.

Beverly Bronson opened the store in 1980. Sharon Jane Smith arrived from the theater world in 1987 and hasn’t left.



“Since May 4 of 1987, I have worked with Beverly Bronson at A Repeat Performance. Now that Beverly has left this world I have to face the fact that I am not the businesswoman she was. It’s time for me to complete my stories of New Yorkers who stopped into the shop," Smith told me earlier this month.

Most recently Sharon showed me some beautifully shaped rocks that were being sold. These rocks were beautiful and looked like they were naturally carved, from a running stream in the Catskills, perhaps. She told me that the Knoephelmachers — Margaret and Joseph, a local couple — were stone collectors. These beauties came from the Sahara desert. Sharon has helped to find new homes for many. Sharon also mentioned her love for making tiling and mosaics, which is exemplified by the work she has done on the front door frame (see photo).



Go in and say hi to Sharon before July 31 and ask about the book she’s writing. You may walk out with a sweet stethoscope or typewriter.



Previously on EV Grieve:
Out and About in the East Village with Sharon Jane Smith