Argo Electronics

One of the last electronic surplus and random things stores left on Canal Street and frankly probably one of the last in Manhattan. Great store with all sorts of stuff for electronics projects, art projects, crafts, random discoveries, etc. Highly recommend checking it out. You never know what you’ll find and that’s half the fun.

Actual rating 3.4 stars. This is an electronics surplus store located on the north side (the west-​bound lanes) of Canal Street, on the West side of lower Manhattan; the neighborhood likely best qualifies as SoHo, but it is really betwixt and between several lower Manhattan neighborhoods. Argo is really the only remaining surplus electronics shop of its kind left in Manhattan. Remember in Season 4, Episode 1 of Fringe, entitled Neither Here Nor There, where the Observer September is browsing for parts in a surplus electronics parts shop because he needs to build a device to erase someone from time? Well, Argo is the closest that you will come to finding such a surplus shop in Manhattan!
Now, to tell you about Argo Electronics, I need to first remind you that the borough of Manhattan once sported at least three distinct «Radio Row» areas, each of them crowded with surplus radio and electronics shops, and each of them, at one time, bustling and prosperous; at least that was true in the 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, and the first half of the 1980s.
One of the three major and definitive Radio Row areas in Manhattan, and arguably the one with the greatest selection of surplus radio and electronics shops, was the western half of Canal Street (another Radio Row was located further south, in what is now the World Trade Center area, and the other Radio Row was up around west 40^th St.). There were dozens of surplus radio and electronics shops on Canal Street at the peak of the Canal Street Radio Row days.
BTW, when I wrote «peak Radio Row days» above, I was talking about the days when one of those very rare persons who knew what they were doing, and who knew what they were looking for, and who had the right knowledge, coupled with the right kind of «inner radar», could visit a dozen of the surplus radio and electronics shops on Canal Street and serendipitously find — intermixed anonymously among the many surplus scraps of Earth-​bound human-​made technologies — a sufficient quantity of alien technology devices and scraps thereof scavenged from crashed alien starships (or from a time-​space rift) that, if acquired and used properly, could easily enable them to build technological gear that was at least 500 years more advanced than the then-​current Earth-​bound radio, electronics, computer and space-​travel technologies.
But, alas, I have said too much already! I have already written more than I should have about the alien tech, and there is now a danger that the Men In Black, or one or more clones of the Hat Man, or the Bald Men, will try to pay me a visit soon. Alas and alack!
Nowadays, about the only surplus electronics shop left on Canal Street is Argo Electronics (well, there are actually three little surplus electronics kiosks/​areas located in Chinese import/​trade shops also located on the northern side of Canal Street, but each of them are quite tiny, and also very specialized in their offerings…).
Argo is quite small, much smaller than the huge surplus radio and electronics shops that once crowded Canal Street, but still of a useful size. It seems to specialize in used, surplus and salvage consumer electronics and also some surplus boards from old computers and from old audio & video studio electronics equipment. A lot of the stuff crammed into the numerous boxes and bins looks like total junk, but, if you are a mad scientist/​engineeer, or an electronics tinkerer or experimenter, you can often find a gem or two mixed in among the dross.
Argo Electronics also often has on display a few old mixer boards and sound boards from equipment pulled from now-​dismantled audio and video recording studios. This shop also often has on display, at the counter, a few older and much-​used Tektronix oscilloscopes and pieces of related electronics bench test equipment, and because of these items, this shop remains a favorite destination for the studio stage and production crews from both large and small film/​video production studios, for these afore-​mentioned items can make great props for science fiction movies.
Argo often has numerous bins and boxes full of surplus gear sitting on the sidewalk outside the shop windows. A few of these boxes and bins may contain «finds», but the best finds are usually to be located inside the shop.
And now, to address the important question: Can you still find alien technology buried among the offerings at surplus electronics shops such as Argo? The short answer is no. This is because the existence of such alien tech trinkets has become too well-​known across the years, and thus the wares of electronics surplus shops are screened rather meticulously by trained agents from any of a half-​dozen well-​funded agencies & organizations interested in acquiring such tech. Nowadays, you’d have a better chance of stumbling upon alien tech by taking a long hike in the wilderness, or across a desert, or by visiting small flea markets located in rural backwoods areas that are off the beaten track.