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Entries in Astor Barber Documentary (1)

Tuesday

May082012

Astor Place Hairstylists

The other week, my pals over at The Half Empty Glass put up a post about a Kickstarter project that’s a documentary of an old school barber shop in Manhattan called Astor Place Hairstylists, a family run business in the city since 1947. The documentary is being made by filmmaker, Karen Gehres, check out the clip below.

Karen originally set a goal of five thousand dollars and she met that, so the project is going to be funded tomorrow. Her new goal is ten thousand bucks and if you liked the clip, maybe you’ll want to contribute to help this documentary see the light of day. The deadline for the project is tomorrow morning, so stop by and cough up a few bucks if you can.

I had a bad experience with a barber a couple weeks ago, and after seeing Karen’s video, I thought I’d give Astor Place Hairstylists a shot and see if they’d let me blog about getting a haircut there, let’s go see!

And here we are at the legendary barber shop on Astor Place, let's go down and take a look.

Through the doors...

And there's the front desk. They speak a little english, so I think we're in luck here.

Here's John and Fifi at the front desk and they said I was more than welcome to take a tour and some photos before my haircut. It's very friendly in here, I like it already!

As you can see, this is one large old school barber shop.

Every barber customizes their own hair cutting station. This one reminds of the line in the Beatles song, Penny Lane: Penny Lane there is a barber showing photographs, of every head he's had the pleasure to have known.

There's lots of barbers on duty in here, walk-ins are welcome and there's never a long wait to get your hair cut.

A little off the top, here's someone getting a trim.

Purple mane, purple mane!

Some tools of the trade hanging around the shop.

Here's a two caricatures of a couple of the barbers and some other pictures on the wall.

And speaking of pictures, there's a whole wall dedicated to celebrities who have gotten their locks sheared in here. Let's take a look.

Kevin Bacon in the house, six degrees of sep-hair-ation. Oof, sorry about that!

Comedian and actor Chris Rock poses for the Astor Hair camera.

John Malkovic went the full route and had it all taken off at Astor Hair.

Five in one: LL Cool J, Susan Sarandon, Macauly Culkin, Mila Kunis and Spike Lee, all are regulars at Astor Hair.

The barber shop is also known for specialty cuts that include getting the logo of your favorite sports team cut out of your locks on your noggin'.

Okay, it's time for me to get sheared. Here's my stylist, Mercedes, a very pretty and friendly woman who welcomed me and was happy to have her photo taken.

Here's her name plate on her mirror and an accidental obligatory mirror shot of myself and Mercedes.

Mercedes took a shot of me and my unruly locks, time to get down to shear business.

Here's a mirror shot of Mercedes in action, a great barber and we had a nice conversation as she trimmed my locks.

Check it out, a nice summer haircut by Mercedes!

She also took a shot from the back. Wow, lots of gray there, can you say, Grecian Formula? I knew that you could!

And there's candy at the register, just like the old days!

And on the way out is a poster for Karen's documentary, don't forget to stop by and contribute if you can, after spending a day in here, I guarantee this will be one great documentary on an old-school, family-owned barber shop.

Astor Place Hairstylists
2 Astor Pl. (Near Broadway)
212-475-9854

Okay, I’m off looking for a job tomorrow and Thursday, but check back in for the weekly happy hour on Friday and there’s going to be a Chillmaster post on Saturday, so stay tuned!

Further Reading: EV Grieve, Jeremiah’s Vanishing New York and New York Magazine.

Gonna tell your momma, you better do what she said,
Get to that barbershop and get that hair cut off your head.

Surprise link, click on it...I dare you!

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Bonus Link For Mykola Mick Dementiuk's Latest Novel!

There's an excerpt for TWM commenter Mykola Mick Dementiuk's latest novel, "Times Square Queer," at the Gay/Lesbian Fiction Excerpts blog, check it out here: Times Square Queer excerpt.