Very interesting posts. Although I haven't lived in NY in almost four years, I was there for nearly 25 and spent a lot of time with my boots on the ground. The retail rent economics of Manhattan are cruel: either you have a long-term lease which suggests a low threshold a la Plaza, or you are a new leaseholder and must either do high volume/low-margin business or sell very high margin, low volume stuff. The folks in the middle generally do not fare so well.

What this means for watches is that they get pushed to the "Mart" concept, like 47th Street, where vendors are aggregated in multiple, tiny stalls, often doing a lot of referral and wedding ring/rolex business. The time, patience, and endeavor that it takes to curate a vintage collection just does not compute, especially for Heuer where the sweet spot is $1500-$4000. In effect, our 60-80s Heuers are a New York pariah. In Berlin and the handful of European capitals where there is ample supply, it seems that there is far more acceptance of integrating mid-range historical swiss brands iwith new stock. This knowledge base and sensibility barely exists in New York. The result is that what few Heuers do trickle down, go to mercurial (and often bi-polar) nut jobs like Plaza who acquire them by happenstance from estates and the misfortune of other jewelers, etc.

It's kind of sad that New York cant sustain this, but it proves that even one of the most diverse cities on the planet, you cant have everything.