Irreplaceable Artifacts

Delighted is not the word! I was so happy to walk by today and see that Irreplaceable Artifacts is not gone forever, like I thought they were.
They used to have a tenement building full of salvaged architectural elements on the LES. I used to love to poke around in there…
Unfortunately, the building wasn’t meant to be filled with quite that volume of stone and metal, and there was a partial collapse.
Seriously, they could have gotten most everything out… it wasn’t that bad. But the city disagreed, and demolished it with everything (including the pet cats) inside. It was one of the most tragic things I’ve seen. (One of — I’ve also seen the city demolish buildings with people and personal belongings inside… ah, the Giuliani days.)
Anyway, nothing got salvaged back then… but they have clearly regrouped, restocked, and now have a whole new building filled with awesome stuff. And cats. Let’s hope the floors in this building have been reinforced!