When good artists die, they go to New York Central.

For three generations, New York Central Art Supply has been dealing Bristol board to the most famous names in the art world.  Jeff Koons shops here.  So did Louise Nevelson and Basquiat.  Owner Steven Steinburg once so delighted De Kooning by personally delivering a mat cutter that the artist did a drawing just for him.

Steinburg inherited New York Central from his father.  His grandfather Benjamin founded it in 1905.  It’s known as the serious real deal.  If what you covet is beautiful, exotic, or rare, New York Central has it.  Want to draw on Bhutanese paper with Charbonnel inks? They’ve got you.  Their third floor paper department, with it sheets of thick cream Bristol and scarlet and gilt pages from Florence, inspires utter lust.  There are stunning journals and a rainbow of inks and brushes as big as me.

Most of New York Central’s employees are artists.  The third floor is papered with pages from their “Gila Books”, which contain razor-edged, Steadman-esque caricatures of the store’s most insane customers.

My own love affair with the place began because they’re the only place I can buy pen nibs.  Blue-steel scratchy needle fine Rexel 1950’s to be exact.  I go through dozens a month, and seeing them spill out like the shells of some iridescent art beetle- why comrades- a dorkgasm is to be had.   I left the store today with several hundred.

New York Central is on 62 Third Avenue
New York, NY 10003, and is open Mon-Sat 8:30am-6:15pm.  If you are in New York, and have any pretenses of being an artstar, this is where you must buy your stuff.

Words by Molly Crabapple.  Photos by Kate Black