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Himalayan Crafts Store Closing After 40 Years on Upper West Side

By Emily Frost | August 21, 2015 1:31pm | Updated on August 24, 2015 8:57am
 The owners said it's time for them to close, citing their age and the number of years they've managed the store. 
Himalayan Crafts Store Closing
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UPPER WEST SIDE — A independent store selling clothing and crafts from Nepal is closing after four decades in the neighborhood, the owner said. 

Himalayan Crafts, a small shop on Broadway between West 68th and 69th streets, will close its doors at the end of October, owner Shozo Miyahara said.

Miyahara, 72, said it wasn't a rent increase or any external factor that had pushed him out, but that it was simply time to go.

"We have been here too many years," he said. "We are getting old."

Miyahara, who is originally from Japan, opened the store after visiting a village in Nepal that had beautiful clothing and handmade goods, but had no market for selling them, he said.

He set up his Upper West Side store to help Nepalese artisans from the city of Bhaktapur by selling their wares, and he has continued to import goods from that region ever since, he said. 

The Lincoln Square Business Improvement District describes the store as one of the neighborhood's "oldest and most unique shops."

In addition to clothing and fabric, "the shop also carries a variety of trade beads from around the world from the popular Venetian trade beads to Asian trade beads," as well as "ornate mask from the Himalayas," the BID said. 

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