Ethereal

“My neighborhood is very small but concentrated around a main street, Vernon Boulevard. This store is at the further end from where i live. It’s very narrow, like a long hallway with garments and jewelry of lesser known designers hanging along the walls. For a smaller store they have a lot of little things to look at. Interesting about looking around the store, it’s nice b/c it’s usually empty, but at the same time a little nerve-wracking b/c the attention of the shopkeeper is entirely on you.”

Nook N’ Crannie

“I love older furniture, not really even antique specifically, just slightly older wooden chairs and desks and tables. This store is perfect for that and it’s far less expensive then one would assume. All are found pieces so the store is constantly getting a fresh supply of beautiful oldies. The furniture is simple, practical, and solidly built, things every house buys once and keeps for a lifetime. It’s right next to Ethereal and on Vernon Boulevard in LIC.”

Subdivision

“Also on Vernon, this store is the 3rd of the trendy stores in the neighborhood, possibly the first one that set up shop. Like Ethereal it has lesser known designers, men’s and women’s clothes, bags, jewelry, but also functions as a gallery space. About a third of the store, on the right side when you enter, usually has a small exhibition up. The store has a sort of clean, modern, but d.i.y. art vibe to it.”

Muji

Photo: Andrew Loxley

“Who doesn’t love minimalist Japanese design? The Muji stores are actually probably the only stores I really ever go into anymore. All of their bathroom/toiletry travel containers always seem to be exactly what I was looking for without even realizing it and their stationary and office supplies department fulfill my every paper/pencil obsession. I even bought their jersey knit bed sheets after I could not find it anywhere else and most recently their luggage! It’s exactly what I was looking for and beautifully designed as well.”

Dorothy Hong is a photographer residing in New York. A graduate of the School of Visual Arts, she served as The Fader magazine’s photo coordinator before she began shooting full-time. In 2007 she was named as one of PDN’s 30 Emerging Photographers to watch. Her clients include Nike, Johnnie Walker and publications such as Monocle, Newsweek, and Marie Claire China. She just returned from her first solo exhibition at the Vision Quest Contemporary Photography Gallery in Genoa, Italy.

See more of her work on www.dothong.com.

All photos by Dorothy Hong unless otherwise stated.