By Cheryl Wischhover
Hey, Upper West Side jewelry buffs–good news for your necks, but potentially bad news for your checking account: jeweler Alexis Bittar is opening an outpost on Columbus Avenue.
Alexis Bittar is a Brooklyn-born jeweler who made a splash in the fashion world with his kind of weird but very cool lucite jewelry, which is his signature. He works with a lot of different materials now, but chunky bejeweled lucite is his thing. He also spearheads wacky ad campaigns, like a recent one with the ladies from “Absolutely Fabulous.”
Bittar, who has stores on Madison Avenue, in Soho, and in the West Village, snagged the storefront at 410 Columbus between 79th and 80th, according to the New York Post. He sure didn’t get it for cheap though, and he may have actually inadvertently raised retail rents over here on the UWS. Apparently the space, which used to be a Supercuts, was listed for $300 per square foot. A bidding war broke out–no word on who the other bidder was–and it got driven up to a record $330 per square foot–which is apparently a record high rent for space on Columbus Avenue above 79th. Great, Alexis. Sheesh
Well, at least it’s not another g-d d*amned bank.
Re: “…Apparently the space, which used to be a Supercuts,…”
Does he cut hair? Could be a lucrative sideline. There aren’t that many good barbers in the LUWS (Lower-Upper-West-Side) !
There is a great barber on 72 between west end and bway on the north side of the street, ask for Joseph
BREAKING NEWS: Silly people obsess over silly things