Harry's Harbor Bazaar, Port of Hamburg, Germany, (store)

Name: Harry's Harbor Bazaar
Type: Store
Street: Erichstraße 56 (Corner of Balduinstraße)
City: Hamburg
State: North Germany
Zip:
country: Germany
Phone:
Status: operational

Description:
This non-academic primitive art store originated out the collections of a genuine Hamburg sailor's bar that closed in the 1950s. Though not much Polynesian art is present, the atmosphere of a turn of the century curio store or anthropolgy museum can nowhere else be felt as genuineley as at Harry's.

It has been immortalized by Tom Waits on his "The Black Rider" album in his "Lucky Day Overture" as "Harry's Harbour Bizarre".

Old location postcard 1:

Old Location postcard 2:

Since it's move from the dizzying labyrint of catacombes in the Bernhard-Nocht Strasse the room with the moldy taxidermied animals is gone unfortunately, but the same awe at the sheer mass of carvings and the maze they form can still be experienced in its current location....Ladies and gentlemen--Harry's Harbour Bizarre is proud to present:

Their website is all in German, but by trial and error one can navigate the store virtually:
http://www.hafenbasar.de/

[ Edited by: bigbrotiki 2009-08-29 00:26 ]

DIZZAM!

Ganz toll!

bigbro: how long has this place been open? I lived in Hamburg from '91-'92 and spent a lot of time walking around the St. Pauli Hafenstrasse area, but never saw this place.

Oh, it was just around the corner of the Hafenstrasse then...and now is a couple of blocks up from it, didn't move far. Harry used to charge a buck for showing his AUTHENTIC shrunken head, while he was still alive...Harry, that is.

Don't feel bad, when I moved to L.A. in the early 80s I used to live just up the street from the original Hollywood Don The Beachcomber, and drove by it daily. Never went in.

On 2007-03-25 17:16, bigbrotiki wrote:
Don't feel bad

Normally, I wouldn't, but this seems to be a recurring motif for me. I lived in Whittier for 8 years and used to hang out at the roller-skating rink right next to Oceanic Arts, but I never even knew it existed until I bought L.A. Bizarro.

Oh well, I'll just have to check Harry's out the next time I'm "Hoch Im Norden".