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Michael Jordan Consignment Store Sells Pre-Owned Sneakers in Bed-Stuy

By Camille Bautista | October 30, 2014 2:12pm
  Jordan Heads Brooklyn in Bed-Stuy is the first shop in NYC paying homage to the basketball player. 
Jordan Heads Brooklyn
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BEDFORD-STUVESANT — A first-of-its-kind store is giving Jordan Heads a marketplace to resell their sneakers.

The new consignment shop just for Michael Jordan fans opened its doors in Bed-Stuy last week — the first-ever store in New York City dedicated just to “the Greatest of All Time.”

Jordan Heads Brooklyn sells items exclusively devoted to the basketball player, carrying everything from Air Jordan footwear to hats, shirts, and mini, organic sneaker soaps.

A handful of the sneakers are pre-owned — with their original owners getting an 85 percent cut of the sale, owners said. A spokesman for the store said the second hand shoes are unworn and in pristine condition.

Memorabilia adorns the walls of the 302 Malcolm X Blvd. business, with magazine covers featuring MJ alongside movie posters of King Ralph and Space Jam and a Sal’s Famous Pizzeria box paying homage to Do the Right Thing and the film’s memorable Air Jordan scene.

Sneaker-lovers will recognize the ceiling, hand-painted with elephant print featured on the Air Jordan 3 and the store’s cement print bench mimicking the Air Jordan 4.

A floor-to-ceiling mural at the front of the shop called “The Wall of Airness” depicts the former Chicago Bulls player mid-air, reaching for the basket.

Cousins Calvan Fowler and Ron “Bat” Finnie decided to open the business after spending years working on a documentary chronicling people’s love for the brand. The film is directed by Fowler.

“The film brought us to a lot of people’s homes and businesses and we were able to see inside their lives, a small picture of their passion of Michael Jordan,” Finnie said.

Following the project’s completion, Fowler sought to create a place where individuals could celebrate and share their love for the athlete.

The pair chose Brooklyn, Jordan’s birthplace, as the location and opened on Oct. 23 to pay tribute to the player’s jersey number. Donated pairs of sneakers, dubbed “the string of J’s,” hang from a pipe on the ceiling as a nod to the shoes seen dangling on telephone wires throughout New York City.

“Jordan Heads Brooklyn fits perfectly into the neighborhood,” Finnie, a Bed-Stuy native, said as he shopped there this week. “It’s something that has to be done and it’s exactly for the up-and-coming borough.”

Wesley Fryer, a Clinton Hill resident who visited the store Wednesday, said he had to drop by because of his love for basketball, Jordan and sneakers. During his trip, he donned the store’s giant Air Jordan 1 bobble head. 

The shop's location is ideal, he added, because of its appeal to the neighborhood’s culture.

“I’ll be back and have always been of the mindset to support local places in the community,” Fryer said. “I’d treat it the way I treat my bodega — it helps the community grow and makes the place better.”

The owners said they hope the store helps establish Brooklyn as a destination for visitors.

“We want people all over the world to say, when we come to New York, we have to go to Brooklyn. And if we go to Brooklyn, we have to see the Jordan store,” Finnie said.

“You go to Paris, you have to see the Louvre, the Mona Lisa, or the Eiffel Tower. They have to come here.”