Interesting Watch Shops in New York City

What are interesting watch shops to visit / browse in New York City?

I don't know New York City very well, and will be there through the Thanksgiving Holiday with spare time on my hands.

I'll basically be a tire kicker just passing time, so don't want to bother any proprietor who has better things to do with their time. Probably big stores with big glass cases are best.

I am mostly interested in antique and used watches. I just find them interesting. I am also curious about the various Ferrari watches through the years. I own a 1997 Girard Perregaux 8020 (pour Ferrari). I'm not that much interested in down market “Ferrari Lifestyle” watches, but maybe they could be cool too.

I have heard of the Hublot Boutique. I see lots of watches for sale by “Element in Time NYC”. I know of Tourneau and Tiffany. Mostly though, I am stuck.

Any suggestions for must-see shops?

 

Excellent. Thank you.

I look forward to my visit to the big city. I enjoy even the adventure of just walking around navigating to destinations.

 

Thanks to the great advice here, spent a fun few hours today using watch shopping as a way to explore a little bit of Manhattan. I hope to do more after Thanksgiving too.

So far, visited these places:

Wempe - Yes, awesome. Name it; it is probably there. Loved, loved, loved the reproduction of John Harrison's H1 chronometer. I've seen all of his real prototypes in Greenwich.

Aaron Faber - Not on anyone's list, but I love vintage watches and Mr. Faber showed me a bunch of cool ones. He had 2 (two!!!!) pre-moon Speedmasters, which were totally awesomely cool. Man, I want one. Tried one on. He made me feel really welcome.

Element of Time - They list like crazy on Chrono24 and eBay, so became intrigued to check them out. They are down this rough-and-tumble raise-your-elbows street (47th btwn 5th and 6th). Found the door, but discovered a bunch of people on phones (internet sales only). The street itself looks like a good place to get a good deal on a $100 Patek Phillipe.

Bremont - Yes; quite cool. The salesperson seemed quite bored and seemed to enjoy my company. Some great stories about the watches and some great watches. A very cool authentic circa 1960 aircraft ejection seat on display.

Richard Mille Boutique - Umm, still seems to be in the "planning stages" either that or it has open and closed already.

Walked past IWC, Omega, Blancpain and others; hope to check them out after T'giving.

 

I am back from a wonderful Thanksgiving trip to NYC.

I am not a regular visitor and was struck by just how cool that city is; lots of interesting things to do, the place feels safe and clean, New Yorkers are so friendly and helpful, etc.

Through the week I was there, I continued stopping into watch shops almost every day; it was my fun thing to do whenever I had a moment (and many of my other activities centered around the watch shop area, which helped a lot).

I talked mostly with watch salespeople, most of which didn’t seem that interested in talking watches other than running through their sales scripts regarding their merchandise. That’s fair enough; that’s what the stores are all about.

There were a few wonderful encounters though which are memorable; Aaron Faber with his encyclopedic knowledge of old watches, the young woman in the Omega boutique who took an intense interest in my GP8020, ditto with the young man in the Madison Ave Hublot boutique.

The number of watch shops and the availability of everything was just stunning. I certainly did not see it all. As an exclamation point on that, NYC dealt me a surprise when I thought I’d just jump into Tiffany’s as a last stop just if they had anything interesting … turns out they had a whole floor dedicated to Patek Philippe. Wow.

I found myself fantasy shopping; making a list of watches I’d buy “if only if….”