The Demolition Depot

Profile

Demolition Depot’s mission is much more romantic than its hard-edged name: The company salvages old building fixtures before they end up in landfills. Owner Evan Blum’s workers empty and strip buildings in the city and the greater Northeast before they’re torn down, bringing their finds to their Harlem headquarters. Here, in a four-story building crowded with remnants of the past, you’ll find antique cash registers, glittery chandeliers, giant Roman-numeral clocks, and an oblong glass case of porcelain bathroom fixtures and glass doorknobs too many to count. In the expansive, two-tiered backyard, visitors will find stone gargoyles and cherubic busts lifted from the exteriors of doomed buildings, as well as park benches, subway-station signs, and stacks of assorted tiles. The large and ever-shifting stock is indexed in a central computer system, which customers can use to check prices. And the staff can recommend movers and craftsmen to help turn weathered wrought-iron fence panels or an antique claw-footed bathtub into someone’s newest treasure. — Alex Littlefield