Mystery Storefront Now Slightly Less Mysterious

Photos via Sidewalk Story's Flickr.

This past week, the NY Times peeked inside the Vermont Market and Pharmacy in Carroll Gardens, which has been closed for over a decade...actually, owner Mark Stein wouldn't let them inside, but he does shed some light on the shuttered store. Apparently when it was open, it had a 1920s aesthetic and "was a combination drugstore and market, selling specialties from Vermont"; prior to that, and under the same owner, it was called Mark's Pharmacy. These days it serves as a look into the past, a frozen-in-time storefront sitting on Henry and Sackett Streets. Local lore is that the suspender-wearing Stein is a quirky genius and recluse who is perhaps unwilling to sell his piece of prime real estate. He recently addressed some of the speculation about the store's past with the Times:

He dispelled some of the rumors, though, saying that aliens were not the reason the store closed down. Mr. Stein said: “It didn’t quite work out.”

Around 1996, for reasons he did not elaborate on, Mr. Stein tried something different, opening the Vermont Market and Pharmacy with a few partners, some of them puppeteers with Bread and Puppet Theater, based in Glover, Vt. Mr. Parke, one of the partners, lived for a time in a back room of the pharmacy.

After a year of being opened as the Vermont Market and Pharmacy, the store closed and has remained shuttered ever since. Stein hinted at re-opening as soon as this coming fall, however; but he didn't get in to what the latest incarnation would hold.