Tommy Guns Salon Opens a Brooklyn Outpost
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As you trudge down the rather friendly expanse of North 3rd Street in Brooklyn, you’ll notice it’s in a bit of a transitional phase: as popular restaurants, shops, and other outposts that have enjoyed success in Manhattan scramble to secure a piece of the ever-widening Williamsburg scene. Many of these proprietorships seem out of place, but Tommy Guns Salon seems like it’s been a faithful fixture. In fact, the place is so subtly part of the neighborhood’s DNA that I nearly missed it altogether.
It was a quiet Friday afternoon, but owner Russell Manley was casually holding court, as you can imagine he often does: "That fellow is one of the guys who started the Meatball Shop," he says about his only current customer. Manley is an incredibly friendly, (and clearly very talented), Scotsman; a "quick with a joke or a light of your smoke" type of guy: born for this role. He designed this particular space, (part old-school Barbershop, part new-school, carefully branded neurosis) which used to be an 1870’s drugstore, and much of the original cabinetry remains, albeit updated. It’s a place that will age well. And they offer the services that you might expect from the several top-notch, neo-Barbershops that have risen up around downtown New York: the straight razor shave, the classic cut. I ask Manley what he did before getting into this business in 1994 (his first New York location opened on the LES in 2008). "I’ve always been in hair," he says. With his windowpane waistcoat, and tweed driving cap, I was expecting him to say he dabbled in haberdashery.
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"Is that the new one?" Manley reacts to our November issue, which sits under my arm, and I then offer to him. A GQ man. As he leafs through the pages he seems particularly attracted to the lengthy Survivors music feature, he points at a great shot of David Johansen. "That guy lives on that island with all the crazy people!" His whole staff looks at him puzzled until one of the ladies at the front pipes up. "Staten Island?" "Yes! Whenever there’s an unsolved murder mystery it somehow always leads back to that place. Very weird, isn’t it?" I would have answered, but at this point, all I’m thinking about is how I need to come to this place every month for a trim...
Tommy Guns Salon is located at: 85 North 3rd Street, Brooklyn; (718) 388-8288
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