NY TIMES | A New York Drugstore Nearly as Storied as the City Itself
By the time Alec Ginsberg was 5, he knew he wanted to work at his father’s drugstore. “It wasn’t a decision, I just knew,” says Ginsberg, 29, who, along with his father, Ian Ginsberg, is now the co-owner of C.O. Bigelow in Greenwich Village. “I saw how he loved his work much more than my friends’ parents liked theirs,” Alec recalls. “He’d come home and tell me how he had met Lou Reed or David Bowie. My dad was like the mayor of Greenwich Village, and I thought, How cool!”
Both father and son are passionate about music. Ian, 58, recalls working at the store as a teenager with his father back when it still had a lunch counter. Musicians recording at Electric Lady Studios on West 8th Street often came by or called in for lunch. And Ian was happy to deliver. “When I figured there was a chance I’d meet Jimi Hendrix, I thought I’d just lose it,” he recalls. “I was so excited.”