If the shopping hordes in Soho start to trample all over your feet and spirit, duck into the Evolution Store on Spring Street just a few short blocks from Broadway.   Self titled “NYC’s premiere retail outlet for science and natural history collectibles, artifacts, gifts, and home furnishings,” the Evolution Store is one part natural history museum and one part some collector’s musty attic, the kind that’s the opening scene to some heartfelt children’s adventure movie about a board game coming to life.

And comparisons to Manhattan’s own American Museum of Natural History abound; both are packed with dried and taxidermied animals in life-like repose.   But you can’t walk out of the AMNH with your very own shrunken head.   Or glimpse the rare northeastern squirranha, a part-squirrel, part-piranha monstrosity.     Or maybe you just want to buy some brain-shaped soap for a housewarming gift or further cement your “favorite uncle” status buy bringing your nieces some scorpion-encased lollipops.   In any case, the Evolution Store could be a worthwhile stop for you.

The Evolution Store
120 Spring Street
New York, NY 10012
(212) 343-1114

Get in touch with the author @plainjanehu.