39 Avenue A · East Village

About East Village Buyers

East Village Buyers is a small shop on Avenue A where people come to buy, sell, and trade things they actually use — gold and jewelry, designer bags, streetwear and sneakers, watches, electronics, and more. We're not a big chain or an online-only operation. We're a real storefront with a counter, real people behind it, and the same address we've had for years.

When you walk in, we'll look at what you brought, tell you what we see, and give you an honest number. If you like it, you get paid the same day. If you don't, no hard feelings — you take your stuff and go. That's how we've always run it.

The building we're in

Our shop at 39 Avenue A is part of a group of brick buildings known as First Houses. If you've walked past us, you've probably noticed they don't look like the tall tenements on most Manhattan blocks. There's a reason for that — and it's a piece of New York history.

In the middle of the Great Depression, the city tore down overcrowded tenements on this block and built something new: low-rise apartment buildings wrapped around a shared courtyard, with light and air built into the plan from the start. It opened in 1935 and 1936 under Mayor LaGuardia, with architect Frederick L. Ackerman leading the design. It was the first project of the New York City Housing Authority — and the first public housing built by a city in the United States.

The idea was straightforward: give working families a decent place to live at a rent they could afford, using New Deal work programs to get it done. Bricks from the old demolished buildings were reused in the new ones. The result is human-scaled — four and five stories, red brick, quiet compared to the rest of the neighborhood.

The Landmarks Preservation Commission designated First Houses in 1974. The complex is also listed on the National Register of Historic Places. That means the buildings are protected — their character and history are recognized as worth keeping, not just for the people who live here but for the city as a whole.

We think about that when we open the door in the morning. This block has been through a lot — tenements, demolition, rebuilding, nearly a century of New Yorkers living their lives in these walls. We're one small shop in a long story. We try to run it in a way that fits the neighborhood: straight talk, fair dealing, and respect for the people who walk through the door.