In the East Village, John Casey presides over an emporium of woodcuts and engravings that has outlasted an entire industry.
Underneath a yellow awning at 322 E 11th St, Casey operates the last remaining commercial rubber stamp business in New York City. When he first arrived in the city at age 16, he recalls there being 30 to 40 similar shops. Now, at 76 years old, he stands alone as the city’s final purveyor of the craft, still drawing customers through his door nearly five decades after he began.
Casey Rubber Stamps operates as a legacy business that survives by strictly adhering to the old-fashioned way of doing things. Inside the shop, heavy, vintage machinery is still used to press detailed red rubber sheets. Workers manually cut out the designs and mount them onto wooden blocks.
The store’s shelves are packed floor–to–ceiling with thousands of these wooden stamps, featuring aesthetics derived from antique woodcuts and engravings. The catalog includes diverse images ranging from anatomical drawings and geometric shapes to portraits, horses, sheep, and assorted curiosities…