- Restaurants |
- Nightlife |
- Shopping |
- Movies |
- All
Abracadabra Superstore
Rating Details »
Neighborhood: Flatiron
19 W 21st st
(between 5th Ave & Broadway)
New York, NY 10010
(212) 627-7523
19 W 21st st
(between 5th Ave & Broadway)
New York, NY 10010
(212) 627-7523
- Nearest Transit:
-
23rd St-Broadway (R, W)
23rd St-6th Ave (F, V)
23rd Street (PATH)
- Hours:
Mon-Sat. 11:00 a.m. - 7:00 p.m.
Sun. 12:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.
- Price Range:
-
$$$
- Accepts Credit Cards:
- Yes
- Wheelchair Accessible:
- Yes
Sponsored Result
Sale Nearby
Manhattan Wardrobe Supply
- Category:
- Fabric Stores
- Neighborhood:
- Fashion District
Mention YELP and receive 10% off your in store purchase or shop online at www.wardrobesupplies.com. Enter 245YELP at checkout.
16 reviews for Abracadabra Superstore
WTF???
That's what I said when I walked in!! I'm not much of a Halloween guy but this year decided to throw a party for my daughter and her friends so i decided to pick up some gags and some fake blood etc.
The extent of my halloween shopping had always been Ricky's or the random centers that open up seasonally. Well all I gotta say is these places don't even compare to this store!!
They have every type of costume imaginable in the basement!! Now keep in mind, if you go close to Halloween there is the chance that they could be sold out of a particulare one, but they have a huge selection nonetheless. Naughty, nice, scary, I mean every type of csostume.
I was particularly impressed with their customer service. The one crazy thing about this place is that when you walk in, it can be a bit overwhelming. No...I didn't say scary, I said overwhelming! Its just bigger than what I would've thought and there are things everywhere! the customer service helped me find the gags I was looking for much quicker than it would've taken me to find them myself. The girl in the paints section gave me exactly what i was looking for...makeup to simulate bruises and cuts...figured I scare the kids a bit..LOL
My cons on this place...a little bit unorganized...but maybe its because I went a few days before Halloween so it looked like Macy's 3 days before xmas! I heard alot of the costume shoppers saying that the costumes were pricey...I wouldn't know...I don't need a costume!!! LOL
But seriously...looking for a costume...and not worried about a budget then this is your place. Looking for simple gags or pranks...go here as well!
By day I work in an office and by night I am a cabaret performer. On my lunch break I needed to pick up a shell bra, trick knife, thumb-cuffs and glitter and I love this store!
Abracadabra is an institution in NYC, and with the closing of other major costumers in the area, this store has pretty much everything you need for a special event, performance or night staying in and playing dress up with your beau.
The variety of costumes available for rental is awe-inspiring, and if the stairs are roped off, just ask an associate to go down! I know that they are re-organizing the store and gearing up for the fall but downstairs is open.
This is a time when I really wish I had a kid: there is a rack of incredible clearance children's costumes which are simply missing a small part. Totally worth it. Gone are the days of being able to open the for-purchase costumes and trying them on (people would come in and open packages, take things out, steal, etc) and as a result there are also a lot of adult costumes that are missing tiny parts or require small repairs on clearance. Bargain central.
ALSO, I was thrilled to hear the owner talk about his assortment of plus size costumes. That is so great for the women of the world who are not a size 2!
They have a great assortment of Ben Nye makeup (including the BEST glitter manufactured!) and all reasonably priced.
I would rather go to Abracadabra then Halloween Adventure ANY DAY.
One of my favorite events of the year is Halloween... it's one of the few times out of the year that you can dress up like some outragious character and get away with it. And walking thru a costume store is a big part of it... getting ideas of multiple themes is always so much fun.
I've been to several costume stores thru out the country, and this one is not anything spectacularly different. Although they do have a magic area, which was pretty cool. I was surprised being the day before Halloween, it wasn't too crazy in there with last minute shoppers.
I visit this store and I can't say I do that with other retail establishments.
Looking around this place and being inspired by the characters, the wigs, the hats, the gory Halloween characters next to the whoopee cushions everything you never new you needed or wanted. This store is a live movie set and even if I don't need a pirate hat I can still let my imagination run crazy.
I do find it pricy but they do have free magic shows each Sunday at 3 so there is some benefit plus you can't leave the place sad so if you just need a cheap pick-me-up go in and look around the hoola girl sunglass alone will make you forget a stressful day.
I had to pick up Halloween tickets on the 5th floor of this place and as I made my way back downstairs, I decided to look around. I stopped by ON HALLOWEEN like an idiot. And of course, it was chaos. Blame my boyfriend for being an indecisive S.O.B. and not having a costume by the 31st like I had asked.
Despite the hoards of people stepping all over each other, I thought this was a great store. Even though it's more disorganized, I liked it a bit more than Halloween Adventure. Maybe it's because the people who worked there were more helpful, or maybe it's because I actually saw fitting rooms downstairs where you could actually try on your costume. Of course, you have to buy it first, present them with a receipt before they actually let you in ... but at least if it doesn't fit you can exchange it for one that does.
Lots of costumes and wigs for rent as well. Don't go near that $5 wig bin though ... they all looked like they'd been worn a few too many times by a bunch of sweaty people.
I always love costume stores in general. But this place is SO HELPFUL when i go on prop runs! When someone says "we need a collapsible dagger and a martini glass- NOW!" I know I can come here and, if I can't find it, they'll send me somewhere I can. Robert (downstairs) is especially helpful.
It's July. Nowhere near October. I'm throwing a costume party for the 4th . I need something to wear. So I go online, google "costumes and NYC" and find the Abracadabra Superstore. I tell my coworker I'm going to a costume shop after work and when she finds out it is Abracadabra she starts raving about it.
So now I have huge expectations, especially since Abracadabra says its a movie prop rental place. Sweet! This is where you can go if you want to partake in some movie magic. My costume ideas evolve three times and I become super excited because I am led to believe that I will find everything and anything I need at the Abracadabra Superstore.
First of all, I enter and it is a hot box. One giant fan at the front door is not enough to cool down the place. My suspicions are that it only blows the dust around. Seriously, this place is like your parents garage from the 70's. Plus there are no other customers. Creepy!
But creepy only because of the scary zombies and creatures laying around. There is also one section of the store where there are monsters standing on both sides. I walked through them and was terrified that it would be a big practical joke and someone would jump out in a mask or something and scare the bejeezus out of me.
Instead, I got great service. Every single employee (about three) asked me if I needed help and one guy let me try on all the hats behind the velvet rope. I found out I look good in fedoras. But that hat would be useless to me.
I didn't find any adult sized costumes. The downstairs was closed off. Practically every section of the store was roped off but still, it was kind of cool to walk around and see everything. There are tons of theatrical make up and accessories for pretty much any look you are going for. Each section is categorized from wigs to boas to fake food and hats.
If a viking, royalty, drag queen, Freddy Kreuger, or pimp is who you want to be, you're in luck at the Abracadabra Superstore. Hey, there are even costumes for children and dogs.
I give four stars to Abracadabra for being somewhat movie museum like. For all I know, you could come here and become Frank the bunny from Donnie Darko. I didn't find anything for my party here but I still had a blast. Aside from my costume, the only other thing the Abracadabra Superstore was missing was Zoltar from Big. Creepy!
It's not cheap. And it's a mess. And their staff is a wacky bunch. But they do have A LOT of costumes and props here.
My purchases:
A yellow afro $36
A yellow boa $20 (a steal seeing as most there were $60-$80)
A rubber beak (but the string broke when I took it out of the pkg) $8
They rent costumes downstairs (never done it but I overheard a $250 quote for a rental of a policeman's uniform. Eek!)
They have a lot of creepy props, magic stuff, and pseudo professional make up and accessories. But lots of the common costumey stuff as well.
It's a great Halloween experience. And the line is NOTHING like the ridiculousness that is Ricky's in late October.
The store is amazing, they are like halloween adventure only with more stuff, and better stuff. At halloween adventure everything looks like it will break in a few days, here the things are typically older and therefor have been built to last (if they are still in one peice). Its also more affordable, though still expensive.
My huge gripe though is that when I went last time the owners were kind of rude. They just kind of stared at me and the other customers as we went through the things there... and weren't very welcoming at all. I'm used to magic stores at least smiling at their fellow magicians. . . Halloween adventure by the way is similar in this respect; I guess you can't work at a cool store without acting like everyone else is scum..
This huge costume and prop emporium recently changed management, and that was NOT a good thing. As you walk into the entrance, everything around you looks like it has been sitting their for the past 10 years and covered in the appropriate amount of mildew and dust.
I ask for pith helmets, and someone who clearly neither speaks English nor understands it goes behind a velvet rope (!) in the hat section (though she clearly has no idea what a pith helmet is).
After about 30 minutes of frustration, and looking around the store myself, I try to ask the manager, who looks like a really trashy Sopranos wannabe. He has been on the phone the entire time for what seems to be an overly complicated bet with the OTB, pausing only to tell another potential customer that a used broken disco ball would be about $2500 when he asked. I inquired about a specific item I saw on their website that I had called earlier in the day about. The Tony poseur tells me that the site and the store aren't the same thing, (even though I had spoken to someone about it less than an hour ago).
Finally, I see something that slightly resembles a Pith Helmet and inquire about it. It turns out to be really used, missing parts, broken, and unusable. Even so, this douchebag has the nerve to tell me that I can 'have it' for $24 like he's doing me a favor.
I couldn't spend money here if I shot it up this loser's ass with a two-headed dildo. I apologize for being so crass. If you read my other reviews, you will see that this review is a HUGE departure for me, but this trashy A-hole has lowered the bar and I felt it was appropriate to describe my experience accurately.
The good news... I ended up finding brand new, great looking pith-helmets at the Army Navy store a few blocks away. http://www.yelp.com/bi...
The OTHER store's staff was very helpful, nice, and conducted themselves with class. Also, the much more superior and brand new product was $15.
Abracadabra is a pretty huge store with tons of awesome gory display pieces (when I was here it made some little boy cry his brains out) and tons of little nick knacks and what not. They have the largest selection of those corny cheaply made Halloween costumes (most of them slutty women costumes) in the plastic pouches that I've ever seen. Also the largest selection of high quality fake mustaches. They also have a whole half a floor in the basement full of racks and racks of rental costumes of all kinds.
This is where I stop dishing out compliments though, I was surprised and disappointed with Abracadabra in a lot of ways. For a store that has a no refund/exchange policy I was shocked at how many of the items looked old, worn, and used (nearly everything not in a package). I was also disappointed at how ridiculously expensive everything was. Nearly everything is cheap Chinese items that people are only going to use a couple times and I think for what you're getting (especially if you get one of the many dusty used flea market looking items) it's just too overpriced.
Also after making my rounds around the floor I asked a salesperson where the costumes were, turns out they were down the stairs, which was blocked off by a velvet rope. Abracadabra is actually two floors big and I'm kind of surprised that I had to get permission and have someone move the rope so I could browse the bottom floor. The woman in charge of the rental costumes downstairs was an old Spanish woman who spoke very little English and when I asked if they had a girl scout uniform for rental she didn't understand or know what a girl scout was so that was frustrating and surprising that they had her working there. I couldn't help notice that the costume heads (donald duck, a bear, a rabbit, etc..) they had for rentals were the most ghetto beat up heads I had ever seen and I wouldn't be surprised if they would make small children cry. I would also seriously think twice before putting my head into one of those things.
Anyway the people who work there are nice , the location is convenient, and the decorations that have around the store are pretty cool but I wouldn't really come here unless I really needed something they had and no one else did.
It's not Hogwarts but it comes close. Magic tricks. Creepy costumes. Weird novelty items. It's Halloweentown 24/7. Speaking of which come October 1st the place is like Bloomindale's during no tax week. They also have free magic shows for kids on Saturdays.
When you walk into a place that's playing ABBA, and you overhear one clerk asking another, "Can we rent out these clown shoes?" you know that there's a high probability that you're in the best store ever. Between the florescent purple, pink and green carpet (think Hammer pants from elementary school), the wig gallery, the feather boa gallery, and the giant stuffed monsters (Abominable Snowman, Orcs from Lord of the Rings), the only thing that could possibly make this place more complete would be if they employed a magical midget. It's like Abracadabra Superstore is equal parts Halloween store, drag queen depot, and back lot of Paramount Pictures. And this place is huge! There are two floors overflowing with shit you've never imagined before. Is it cheap? Not really, but any place that has a sign saying, "Adult Costumes for Rent Downstairs" is my kind of place (truthfully though, the idea of second hand "adult" costumes kinda gives me the heebie-jeebies).
One of my fav places to frequent each year!
Get ready for Halloween! This is one of the greatest Halloween/Costume stores I've ever visited. They have a WIDE selection of costumes available for rental, at a price, but of great quality. You can rent the costume until the end of the month, so you can have it for multiple Halloween parties! Even if you just want to look around, you should definitely go take a look. Or just to have fun trying on the costumes!
The first words I heard after walking though the musty, magical kingdom of Abracadabra were, "Hey Eric! We're missing King Kong's right arm." Not your average lingo heard from staff at a retail store, but then again, not your average store. Festive and funky, this costume, decoration, and spoof gifts 2 floor fun house is a must see. Rent a gorilla costume to add something to your next party, buy a shock lighter to get your friends to stop smoking, or to just scare the living bajesus out of them. This store is a trip.
