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Sterling Place
Critics' Pick
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Profile
Robert Wilson and Elizabeth Crowell—the husband-and-wife team behind this upscale, collector-centric gift shop—met in 1998 while working as marketing execs at the now-defunct internet behemoth CDNow. After the bubble burst, the couple decided to try retail. In terms of deciding what to sell, Wilson and Crowell abide by a motto of "beautiful but functional," so the space feels like a carefully curated mini-museum rather than a jumbled trinket trove. The bright interior has a classic look: polished wood floors, chrome light fixtures, and old apothecary counters complement the items, many of which are antiques (a nineteenth-century steamer trunk, a thirties model airplane) or vintage-inspired (clocks fashioned from old cameras, a scale model of a hot-air balloon, a juggling-circus-elephant sculpture). Both this Atlantic Avenue location and its smaller Park Slope sibling do a brisk business in furniture, drawing many Manhattanites who snap up statement pieces like fold-out vintage game tables, open-sided mahogany bookshelves, and crossband cherrywood dining tables custom-crafted in England.