Text and photos by Linda Dyett
The jam-packed children's toy, game and book shop Dinosaur Hill, a neighborhood institution since 1983, will be closing at the end of November. Pamela Pier, the shop's tireless owner, has decided to retire.
This little-shop-that-could — many of its items under $5 — set the pace for the many of the visionary, iconoclastic stores that have opened on the East Village's side streets in the decades that followed.
A final storewide sale is already under way — 25 percent off through the end of October, 40 percent off in November.
Veselka, Dinosaur Hill's equally well-known next-door neighbor, will be taking over its lease, and expanding into the space here at 306 E. Ninth St. just east of Second Avenue.
Pier, who trained as an artist and early-childhood educator, had a specific goal with all the old-fashioned wooden wheel-y vehicles, dexterity-improving games, science kits, pick-up sticks, xylophones, art supplies, soap bubbles, erector sets, hobby horses, books, stuffed orangutans, puppets, marionettes, a multiethnic range of dolls, and, as an afterthought, wearables, in her inventory.
She wanted "to keep kids out of cyber space and engaged in 3D activities." Some items are produced by local artists and artisans. Other goods come from small-scale companies around the United States. The hand-carved cherry wood teething rings and rattles? They're from a supplier in Texas while the bass wood alphabet blocks, available in a variety of languages, are handcrafted in Grand Rapids, Mich. And still others come from around the world: marionettes from the Czech Republic … clothing items from India and a women's craft co-op in Ghana.
When Pier finally decided it was time to retire, she contacted Veselka to see if there might be interest in its expanding into the space that Dinosaur Hill occupies. The answer was yes! (This is not the first such negotiation Pier has had with Veselka. Some years back, she moved from another storefront in the same building to accommodate an earlier expansion the restaurant made.)
Meanwhile, her employee Karen McDermott and McDermott's husband, Jason McGroarty, plan to maintain Dinosaur Hill's legacy by opening their own East Village children's shop — with Pier on board as consultant. If the right storefront opens up, they’re interested.
But there's no doubt Pamela Pier and her truly unique Dinosaur Hill will be sorely missed.
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Linda Dyett is an East Village-based freelance writer and editor who’s been published in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Monocle, New York magazine and — back when glossy magazines were still magazines — Allure, Glamour, etc.
