Best of 2000: Best Antiquing

Antique Row
Adams Avenue
Normal Heights/University Heights

Memories of the Row: A magnificent Craftsman gumwood built-in sidebar, torn out when a house was torn down, full of doors and drawers, beveled glass and blond-wood presence. A deeply aged but utterly solid stand-up writing desk, its broad expanse begging to bear the work of expansive genius. A bronze bust of Dante based on the Dore illustration, all piercing gaze and scowling genius. Coming off the 805 South onto Adams Avenue, the treasure hunter is welcomed by the mottled yellow sign that designates Adams Avenue Antique Row. To the east stands the unforgettably named Retreads -- seemingly never without some sort of improbable yet attractive chair out front -- and a sprinkling of others, but the bulk of the booty lies to the west. Just past the Antique Row Café, it begins: Quicksilver, Elie Hazou, the Antique Seller, Alouette, Clay's Classics -- which reupholsters old pieces in fabrics ranging from the whimsical to the sublime and displays them for passersby in the adjacent parking lot -- and Zac's Attic. A little further on the left, a trio: Country Cousins, Upper Ten, Antique Cottage. Then on the right: Fifth Avenue Antiques, which, in an apparent nod to the Row, left Fifth Avenue for the space formerly occupied by the Frame Dame (she moved a few doors down). Resurrected Furniture and Dease Antiques sprout up on their own before the final cluster, a block or two before Texas Street: Gledhill's Vintage Furniture, Alessandria's, the Refindery, and Antoinette's. And if the search has still proven fruitless, Persian Heritage and Rocky's lie just off the avenue on Park Boulevard.