Last Wednesday, Paul Molé—the legendary Upper East Side chop shop whose barbers have tended to the top-notch trimmings of Joltin’ Joe DiMaggio and the slighter of the male Honeymooners, Art Carney, among others—uprooted from its 1031 Lexington Avenue, thirty years its home, and moved … across the street. The third relocation since namesake Paul’s father Joseph inherited his uncle’s digs (a stone’s throw away at 1028 Lexington Ave), the UES staple takes to a new joint at 1034 Lexington in celebration of their centennial. Proprietor and master barber Adrian Wood saw the anniversary as a perfect time to stake a claim to the landmark building the Molé family business called home 100 years ago, and he looked to the barber’s chair to make the dream come true—the lawyer who brokered the deal and their new landlord are customers while the builder is a friend. Architect Anthony Desimone laid down the plans.
“We’ve built an art-nouveau barbershop,” Mr. Wood said. “If you walk in, it looks like 1913 on steroids—past décor (black and white tiles as well as vintage remnants from the original location that have stood the test of time) with high-tech lighting and a high-tech soundsytem.”
Observer contributor Alex Fankuchen has had a long-standing appointment with Mr. Wood and feels nostalgic towards its old location but looks forward to seeing how they incorporate the custom stylings into the new one. “It’s definitely a page from the old school handbook: lots of dirty magazines, brass foot bars on the chairs and old Italian barbers. [And] if you’re a regular, they keep a set of initialed strait razors for you in their glass cabinet that lines the front wall.”
Seems a good time to shave off our winter beard.
