By Katherine Mansfield
Entering 0off Ellsworth Avenue in Shadyside is like entering a private club.
A buzzer bzzzes!, the heavy beige door opens and your feet sink into the plush carpet as your eyes widen to take in the showroom, neatly filled with ornate couches and chairs resting near cabinets containing polished silver, hand-blown glasses, porcelains and sculptures. Old paintings decorate the walls. Antique light fixtures hang from the ceiling.
They don’t make things like that anymore comes to mind when you see a floral, blue and white chandelier, a relic of early 20th-century France.
Co-owner David Kozloff smiles and says in fact, they do make things like this, only they’re knockoffs, valueless.
“We always call them 20-footers: They look good from 20 feet, but get closer,” he says with a laugh.
Antique opera glasses are among the treasures found inside Kozloff & Meaders, an antique store that has operated off Ellsworth Avenue in Shadyside for nearly 40 years. Photo by Katherine Mansfield.
You want to get close to, but not close enough to break, everything at Kozloff & Meaders. There’s an overwhelming desire to pick up the slim wooden viewfinder, dating to the 1920s, a precursor to the red, plastic ViewMasters, or to skim your fingers against the hand-carved crucifix from Latin America or to press your nose against the well-lit cases filled with jewelry.
“A lot of the pieces are very interesting because they’re almost one-of-a-kind,” Kozloff says, pointing to a heavy garnet necklace, worn, research suggests, by a wealthy woman in about 1810. “They aren’t, but I mean, you just don’t see them.”
It’s hard not to fall in love with something you see inside Kozloff & Meaders, where all objects date to pre-World War II. Kozloff says those drawn to antiques are the people who appreciate history, workmanship and quality. He knows from experience: Before opening an antique shop in Pittsburgh nearly 50 years ago, Kozloff himself was a collector. He said today is a great time for buying because the market looks similar to the market he started in, in the 1970s.
“Everything was really cheap. And that was fun,” Kozloff says. “You could buy things, nice things, for very little money.”
Since opening Kozloff & Meaders 48 years ago, owners David Kozloff, left, and Mark Meaders have watched trends come and go. “We’re suddenly getting a lot of young people again,” Kozloff says. “We’re getting a lot of 20-year-olds, 25-year-olds, they’re coming in and they’re buying and they seem knowledgeable. They surprise me.” Photo by Katherine Mansfield.
Whether you’re a novice antiquer on a shoestring budget or ready to fork over cash for a hand-carved sculpture dating to 1791, Kozloff & Meaders has something for you. The antique store carries prints of paintings, costume jewelry and less-rare statement pieces at price points college students can afford. The storefront is quiet and dignified, a place not unlike the pieces it keeps.
“When we opened the shop, there may have been 100 antique stores inside the city of Pittsburgh,” Kozloff says. “Now, there are maybe three or four. A lot of it is the supply is gone. The interest has changed.”
But everything old is new again, including antiquing. According to IBISWorld, the antique store industry in the U.S. has grown about 8% every year between 2018 and 2023.
Vince and Mary Beth Rutledge opened Babcock Trading Co. four years ago this August. “My family owned one of the largest flea markets in Western Pennsylvania for years, so I’ve been kind of doing this since I was a young teenager. It gets in your blood. The only way out of it is death,” says Vince, who enjoys the thrill of the hunt, especially when searching for a customer’s wish list item. Photo by Katherine Mansfield.
Babcock Trading Co.
Babcock Trading Co. follows that trend. Vince and Mary Beth Rutledge opened their shop along Babcock Boulevard in Ross four years ago this August.
Where Kozloff & Meaders is formal, Babcock Trading Co. is casual: An antique boat leans against the big, red barn, where vintage flamingo yard decorations, antique seating and bold signs greet guests. Inside, two stories are filled with a Narnia-sized armoire (salvaged from a barn), antique dolls, cameras, typewriters, hats, sporting equipment (including golf clubs and a croquet set from the early 1900s) old-timey photographs and taxidermy (a big commodity among women antiquers).
“We may get shunned by some of the old-timers: We do sell some stuff that we call ‘vintage-style,’” shrugs Vince. “I want to stay in business. We’ll always put a tag on it, or we’ll tell you.”
Among the treasures found at Babcock Trading Co. are vintage and antique telephones, vintage cue balls and an original Pittsburgh Paints sign. Photo by Katherine Mansfield.
Babcock Trading Co. leans heavily into its Pittsburgh roots. The storefront has salvaged and rehomed original Pittsburgh Zoo entrance signs and original Forbes Field seats. Antique and vintage sports pennants are ready for hanging in game rooms; an original Pittsburgh Paints sign will make a really neat statement piece. In fact, it’s signage in general that the Rutledges can’t keep in stock.
“Antique and vintage advertising is so hot right now,” Vince says. “Anything gas- and oil-related.”
And music. Hand-crank Victrolas, the ones that play 78s, sell as quickly as they hit the sales floor. Younger people make up a majority of Babcock Trading Co.’s customer base, and they’re interested in stained glass, too, for remodeling the homes they’re moving into.
Vince loves sending a 1950s gas pump, refurbished for historic accuracy, home with someone who falls in love with the piece. It’s connecting antique pieces to people who will cherish their look and history that makes this business a joy.
“I love to see people enjoy it, give it a second chance,” Vince says. “You can hit a lot of the box stores and you’re gonna kind of see the same thing from store to store. It’s the one-of-a-kind. A lot of the pieces that we get would be in the scrap yard if it wasn’t for people like us here. Giving it its extra life.”
Daguerreotypes and tintypes are popular at The Weeping Glass, where owner Kelly Macabre-Noir also sells antique postmortem photographs. Photo by Katherine Mansfield.
The Weeping Glass
The afterlife is half the charm at a shop in Allentown, where The Weeping Glass is written in resplendent gold against a black storefront. The antiques and oddities shop is apothecary meets museum of the macabre. The grand front room elegantly displays antique medical and dental equipment and scans, Ouija boards and taxidermy animals.
Above the fireplace mantel hangs the portrait of a distinguished woman from New Orleans, her stern features framed forever in gold.
Other photographs decorate The Weeping Glass, which Kelly Macabre-Noir opened at 726 Warrington Ave. in 2023, after several years at a different location.
Noir grew up with collector parents who also crafted Colonial-style furniture. She’s drawn to obscure items with fascinating histories.
“I started collecting, really, in my 20s,” Noir says. “Just odd antiques – that’s what we specialize in, a very curated collection of antiques.”
A skull is on display at The Weeping Glass in Allentown, where other medical and dental relics are for ogling and sale. Photo by Katherine Mansfield.
That collection includes apothecary, medical and natural history antiques, like wax death moulds from France, and the gaffe vampire hunting kit. People of all walks of life, from those who consider Edgar Allan Poe’s birthday a holiday to those whose favorite color is bubblegum pink, are drawn to The Weeping Glass.
“They want to do something unusual. They want to experience things other than just restaurants and museums. To take home a piece of the museum, is sort of it,” Noir says.
She considers her store, which sells new editions of old works, including a book penned by Harry Houdini, an important keeper of history.
“You have these oddities and curiosity shops and museums that are preserving pieces of history that might be considered weird to some people, but they were part of our learning experience as humans. All the quack medical, that was a learning curve for us. We accidentally killed a lot of people trying to do good,” Noir says. “I find a lot of beauty in the old, rusty, weird things that nobody else did.”
While The Weeping Glass displays and sells statement pieces, like antique radios, religious relics, skulls, skeletons and anatomical drawings (including the first anatomical drawings of infants, dating between 1784 and 1830, by Edward Gorey), it’s the funerary pieces that have the biggest appeal. That’s partly because Pittsburgh Mortuary School students inevitably find their way into Noir’s shop, and partly because humans are invariably drawn to the end.
“It’s part of the life cycle. You celebrate the beginning of life and you celebrate that person’s life at the end. It’s kind of wild to me how taboo the practice of funerary has become,” Noir says.
As if to drive home the point, in her big, street-facing window stands a vintage sign for Corba Funeral Home. That funeral home still operates along East Main Street in Carnegie where, two years ago, another antique shop opened, right across the street.
Eva Ziegler and Tim Brock opened The French Spy in Carnegie two years ago, but both have been in the antique business for several years – and collecting personally for even longer. Photo by Katherine Mansfield.
The French Spy
The French Spy is an airy space broken beautifully into a series of vignettes filled with lovely objects that transport you to another time and place. The collection of antiques –items 100 years or older – and the occasional vintage piece is curated by co-owners Tim Brock and Eva Ziegler, who met at Off the Avenue in Coraopolis, where each had their own booth.
“We realized we had the same passion for merchandising and curating and unique stuff,” says Ziegler. “And we thought we could do an antique shop, but in a more modern way, geared toward young professionals, people who really want cool stuff for their home. Helping them envision how antiques can work in their life by curating things really well was our goal.”
The Carnegie storefront is a vision. Brock and Ziegler spend most waking moments thinking about, looking for, and bringing in new pieces, and displaying those collectibles in ways that help guests imagine those items in their own spaces.
The French Spy is one of the few antique-related shops selling antique and vintage furniture, which requires additional licensing, and, while leather Chesterfield couches and reupholstered sitting chairs are always in vogue and in supply, “it’s getting harder and harder” to find well-maintained pieces, Brock says.
A section of The French Spy in Carnegie, where antiques and the occasional vintage piece are on display and for sale. “I hope that our shop sparks interest and curiosity,” says co-owner Eva Ziegler. “We love kind of delighting and surprising people with historical information. These are just little historical artifacts from a different time.” Photo by Katherine Mansfield.
An ornate dining room set near the back of the shop is a testimony to the art of workmanship from bygone times, when pieces were crafted to last through generations. That same artistry is evident in every The French Spy piece, from antique baby shoes and brass greyhound statues to stained-glass lamps and gold-framed mirrors. Wood is now trending, Brock says, prompting Ziegler to point out the grand wooden secretary desk, dating to early-1800s Germany.
“It just makes me think of the fine lady that owned it originally, and the letters, the correspondence, she was writing from it. And then how maybe it ended up here, when they ended up coming to the United States,” she says dreamily.
Everything in The French Spy has a beguiling history, researched lovingly by the owners, who love history. They hope their visitors also appreciate the stories each artifact tells. They aim to connect everyone who steps through their doors with something old that feels new and will be loved.
“It’s called ‘The French Spy Experience,’ and it’s a real thing,” Brock says. “You can see Instagram and Facebook, but when you come in here, it’s just different.”
“It’s part of the joie de vie,” Ziegler adds, “the joy of living, to see, to touch, to experience, to smell.”
While each caters to slightly different audiences, it’s giving pieces of the past purpose in the present that connects Pittsburgh’s antique stores.
Katherine Mansfield is a full-time mom and when-she-can-sneak-in-a-few-minutes-of-writing-time writer who is honored and honestly super excited to pen pieces about all things Yinzer for NEXTpittsburgh. When she isn’t making up silly rhymes for her son or writing, you can catch her drinking coffee (which, at this point, may very well course through her veins) at home or in the Strip District, haunting local libraries (have you visited your local Carnegie library recently?!), reading (books checked out from her own local Carnegie library), or cooling off in one of Pittsburgh’s wonderful public pools.
