Magic is Afoot
A Carroll Gardens restaurant on Court Street hides a wizard of close-up magic
Down on Court Street in Carroll Gardens, past Frankies and F&F, you’ll find Luana’s Tavern, a popular neighborhood restaurant with a wide patio where neighbors gather for weekly Mets games on the big screen, and families flock to Sunday brunch. The food is solid tavern fare and the spot has become a local favorite.
But Luana’s owners, Rick and Alana Miron, who founded the tavern after meeting there when it was the bar PJ Hanley's, have a secret. It’s found in a small building next door, a space they once used as a broom closet, until the Precision Clock & Watch Repair shop opened in the space on April Fool’s Day. But not one clock is being fixed behind the glass door. Inside, magic is afoot.
The Hanley Close-Up Magic Parlor with magician Greg Dubin, is hidden behind the red velvet curtain of the Precision Clock & Watch Repair Shop, a parlor of tricks and treats open every Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday night. Dubin’s show, performed over an hour and a half in three acts – Classic Magic, Bizarre Magick, and a Journey into the Mind – is part magic, part mentalist, part speakeasy; at your tiny table or at the card table with Greg, a flapper-era server comes around with cocktails, wines and spirits all night long.
The room has the feel of an old time vaudeville parlor, a place of ill-repute, where you might find a burlesque show, a smoky room, a temptation too powerful to resist. It’s the perfect setting for a menu of Dubin’s sensational tricks – from slight of hand to cards to the cup and balls, to swallowing pins and needles, to mind-reading and mentalist telepathy. Reality is suspended. Minds are read (and blown.)
Dubin grew up in Florida, bewitched by magic from the time his mom taught him his first card trick at the ripe old age of seven. After studying acting, he decided he would rather do tricks and began performing regularly at Ripley's Believe It or Not Sideshow of Wonders, with The Love Show NYC, and the wildly popular Speakeasy Magick at the McKittrick Hotel; he’s also consulted on several Off-Broadway shows including the smash hit Sleep No More. All along, ever since that first trick with mom, he’s been dreaming of a Magic Parlor of his own.
A few years back, a vintage shop he’d never seen appeared on his block, down on Court near Luquer Street. He was sure he’d never seen it before; it appeared nearly magically. Turns out it was part of a set for the filming of Spider Man. The notion that a space could be built and designed to appear to be something it wasn’t stayed with him.
When the magic parlor 69 Atlantic opened, with headlining magicians selling out nightly, he felt he had to take his shot. “I have been thinking about a space for a long time,” he told me last week when we chatted at Liz’s Book Bar. “I know Ricky and Alana from the neighborhood and from doing walk around magic on Mondays at Luana’s,” he said. “I felt I had to do something or the music would die inside me.”
In March, Dubin convinced the owners of Luana’s to let him transform their little storage space next door into a secret magic parlor. With help from theater friends in the set building business, he transformed the space from a big broom closet into an old time clock repair shop, stenciling golden letters on the storefront’s bay window and creating a lost world of magic and spells behind a heavy velvet curtain.
It’s dark and moody, with flickering crystal chandeliers original to the space hanging from century-old tin ceilings. Skulls, voodoo dolls, cobwebs and creatures of the night under glass give the room a sense of spooky tension; the feeling that something wicked may this way come.
Dubin may be a serious magician but he’s hilarious and engaging. He puts on a show that will astound you – I’ve never seen anything like his tricks – and have you gasping in awe in between full on guffaws of laughter. You will leave wanting to come back and to send everyone you know to come have a seat and be amazed. It’s a wonderful way to escape the world’s chaos and cruelty, to sit in the dimly lit space and watch the impossible become possible.
As you might imagine, word of mouth has already travelled around the neighborhood and now he’s got a waitlist of folks hoping to enter through the door of the clock repair shop and let the world slip away. He’s added more shows though so get your tickets now and tell Greg I sent you!
Tickets are $52.75 for general admission and $78.50 to sit right at the table. Get them here. The Hanley Close-Up Magic Parlor at The Precision Clock and Watch Repair Shop is located next to Luana’s Tavern at 449 Court Street, near 4th Place, in Carroll Gardens.