ABC Home: Alice in Wonderland

February 8, 2012

One of my favorite books as a kid was ‘Alice in Wonderland’. I remember how I used to imagine that every glass of orange juice my mom asked me to drink, was actually the bottle that read ‘Drink Me’, enabling me to shrink or grow, like Alice. My favorite character in the story was, with no doubt, the Cheshire cat. His ability to disappear when ever he wanted, leaving behind him only his smile, always amazed me. Through the years, I’ve watched all the movies about ‘Alice in Wonderland’ and saw different variations of the musicals. As time passed by and I grew up, Alice’s stories were replaced by other stories and she slowly slipped away.

Until one winter afternoon in Manhattan, when I got into a magical store near Union Square and I felt as though I was in one of those places that Alice used to visit. I was in ABC Carpet and Home. One of the most beautiful furniture and home-accessory store in Manhattan, or in any other place I’ve been till then. A store I wish I could call it Home.

ABC Home is a synonymous name for good taste and great style in anything that has to do with urban furniture and home accessories. It feels as though one can find almost everything for the home and for his/her needs. Beside furnish your apartment, you can also ‘furnish’ your own look by buying make up, clothes, jewelry, perfumes, you name it.

If you are related to the Design world (with a capital D) or if you just love looking at beautiful things, ABC Home is the right place. If you have any fantasy of getting lost in one of the best stores in Manhattan, losing any sense of time while indulging your eyes in aesthetics and beauty, then add to your busy calendar a stop over at that place.

The store, which is spread over an entire block on Broadway (with an extension for Textile and Carpet department in a different building across the street) is 10 floors of heavenly furnitures and accessories. In the entry floor, hidden behind shelves and dishes, there is ABC Kitchen, an organic restaurant, owned by the well known chef, Jean-Georges. Entering the store, you have to go through a maze made of decorated arts and crafts, candles, ceramics, glass kitchen ware and crystal chandeliers, suspended from the ceiling. As in a real maze, you can’t see the back of the store from its’ entrance and vise versa and all is set in a spiral shape and piles of objects you want to add to your shopping cart.

But what I like the most about this furnished chic labyrinth, is the order and structure of things. It seems as though there is an internal aesthetic logic behind all this sort of abundance of furnitures and items. Wether it is organized by shades of colors, by a season or by some exotic destination in the world, everything is so neat and seemed as it is in the right place it should be.

For me, ABC Home is like a microcosmos of New York City and its essence. As New York is a combination and a mix of different ethnic groups and immigrants who all live in (sort of) harmony, same as the mix of styles, trends, colors and items at the ABC Home. The store is a collection of various small shops, all under one roof. Different styles are all integrated together; From Vintage to Antique to Tribal to Oriental style. Heavy sturdy furnitures from the Great Britain, alongside exotic items and home accessories from India, Cambodia, Dali, you name it. Materials such as glass, ceramic, wood, porcelain, paper, plastic and tiles.

I can easily go on and on, dreaming about the leather sofa from England, the silky bedding from South of France or the huge pillows from Indonesia, but I think you got my point. ABC Home is definitely a store where fantasies and dreams can come true, and a place that at least for a minute, you can feel like Alice in Wonderland.