Evolution Store: Soho's Little Shop of Curiosities

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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.