Tee Bar

My friends and I were walking down the street when the most marvelous NYC souvenir t-​shirt caught my attention. Having just taken the Top of the Rock tour at 30 Rock earlier in the day, I was excited to find a design that spoofed the famous «lunch break» image you see everywhere on that tour (the one with all the construction workers sitting on a steel beam eating lunch during the construction of the Rockefeller building). Instead of construction workers… Stormtroopers! Yesssss!
The shirt had been clipped to Tee Bar’s open front door, in the middle of winter no less. I whisked myself inside and quickly perused the store’s interior stuffed with a plethora of NYC t-​shirts, magnets, keychains, pins, the list goes on and on. To my dismay, I could not locate the shirt inside. The shirts I did come across were strewn with rhinestones, graffiti-​esque designs, hearts, and so on. I located an employee and asked where I could find the shirt hanging on the door… he chuckled and said they didn’t carry it. I asked if I could buy the one hanging up and he just kind of chuckled again and gave me a non-​committal answer. Dismayed, I left the store. My friends happened to be standing by the door waiting for me so I joined them. While standing there I noticed the shirt had a price tag on it… what the heck!
A few minutes later, the employee I spoke with came to the door where I happened to still be. I asked again if I could buy it so he took it down from the door, consulted with another employee, and finally consented to my purchase. The whole ordeal was somewhat confusing as I couldn’t quite put my finger on what the issue was. Why not say yes or no right from the start? I understand the draw for customers… get them in the door. But why the back and forth? After buying the shirt, I noticed the employee was already hanging up another Star Wars shirt in its place. Confused, but happy I got the unique souvenir I was looking for… I left the store.
Like most stores of this type, there were a couple good deals on some of the merchandise, but for the most part… everything was pretty expensive. My shirt for instance was $ 24. Unless I needed to stock up on souvenirs in a rush… I would probably shop around before dropping a pretty penny here on items that seemed universally available across similar shops.

Tee Bar is mostly a tee shirt shop. There are tons of funny and creative shirts, as well as, tourist-​geared shirts. I saw so many that I liked. It is also a great spot to pick up souvenirs. The have a variety of items, such as keychains, magnets, mugs/​shot glasses, postcards, snow/​water globes, bobble heads, pens/​pencils, etc. I bought a number of souvenirs on my most recent trip into the city and wish I had bought more. You wander around the store with ease and without being bother. Checkout was quick. As with a number of local business, there were no barcodes to scan. They manually enter in the prices. Which can make it a bit more difficult if you are trying to make sure if everything is coming up at the proper price.