At a hundred feet, any New Yorker would immediately have spotted this as a bodega, offering coffee, sandwiches, groceries, soda and cigarettes. Until you get closer, you’d never think this was what it is: one of New York’s quirkiest museums.
And, in fact, it quite possibly was a bodega in its past, although the young volunteer at the cash register and turnstile—yes, a retired subway turnstile—wasn’t sure. But the only merchandise it sells these days are quirky souvenirs of our collective memory and the City Reliquary’s collected memorabilia.
Not that it doesn’t take some things seriously, though: It’s made a point of preserving relics of the Covid pandemic to keep alive the memory of what we went through and how we made it through. The collection includes signs, masks, leaflets and even a Chanukah menorah with the candleholders made of vaccine vials and Dr Fauci standing in for the ‘shamas.’
The 1939-40 and 1964-65 World’s Fairs are well-represented among the artifacts, but the biggest obsession appears to be the Statue of Liberty, in oh, so many forms.
The collection started with Liberty, collected by David Herman, the Reliquary’s founder, who started displaying them and other artifacts in his collection in his ground-floor apartment windows nearby in 2002. Neighbors and others stopped to look, to offer items of their own and eventually, in 2006, it outgrew his window and moved around the corner to its present location. It’s an all-volunteer operation that calls itself a ‘museum and civic organization.”
Everything in the Reliquary is New York-connected, and while you don’t have to be a New Yorker to appreciate it, for New Yorkers many of the exhibits pluck at memories and times we’ve forgotten we were aware of. For instance, as ‘straphangers,’ we’ve ridden the subway, but likely never stopped to notice that over the years the shape and size of the ‘grabholds’ has changed. Or stopped to notice that nearly all the beer brands we grew up with have disappeared.
Some of the exhibit spaces have been reconstructed with elements from neighborhood businesses now gone, such as this barbershop and a pharmacy
Literal pieces of the city are on display, too, including both architectural remnants and bits of the underlying geology of the city.
A little hint of the off-limits and risque—a closed locker labeled as “history of burlesque in New York” is, in fact a real tease. Inside are a few rather modest photos of the dancer once known as Little Egypt and a short description of her career. Too bad if you were looking for something dirty here!
Side by side, exhibits on the nearby Williamsburg Bridge and its construction and a shrine of sorts to No. 42, Jackie Robinson of the Brooklyn Dodgers.
You’ve probably noticed that no space, no matter how high or recessed, is immune from serving as display space. Yes, that’s a couple of dozen pencil sharpeners mounted upside down on the ceiling.
Even the restroom is filled with displays, including an actual set of Walk/Don’t Walk lights.
Water has its moments here, including a display of antique (but still workable) seltzer bottles and the remains of some of the many attempts to sell New York City’s famous tap water as souvenirs. For clarity, though: Our tap water comes from upstate reservoirs, NOT from our rivers!
The Reliquary also has a back room that occasionally hosts special exhibitions; currently there’s one showing the work of a never-well-known street photographer. He should be better known!
And here’s one last Statue of Liberty bit… you’d think that’s just an ordinary spotlight bulb, right? But no… it spent its working life lighting up the Statue of Liberty; when it was replaced, a National Park Service worker, now retired, took it home and in 2016 brought it to the Reliquary.
If a value of museums is to help us hold on to our memories, to explore them and to learn from them—well, it doesn’t necessarily take a big building and a big endowment.
