MOLLY YOUNG GOES SHOPPING: Longhand Specialist Edition

In this week's Thursday Styles, Molly Young is less our Critical Shopper than she is our enthralled one.
Ms. Young has discovered the kind of arcane little store that chain stores and real estate investors have made increasingly rare these days. CW Pencil Enterprise is a tiny shop devoted exclusively to writing implements of graphite wrapped in wood —no fountain pens or magic markers, just pencils. It is clearly a labor of love, and what it lacks in commercial potential it seems to make up for in earnest charm, "as if Captain Ahab opened a boutique of whale trinkets," our shopper writes.
And who really wants to give a critical assessment of a store designed to preserve interest in a slowly dying writing tool? Certainly not our shopper. The merchandise is highly affordable and adds a nice touch to a desk. Our shopper is converted to a pencil believer mainly because they really are still useful despite our current cultural predilection with communicating by keyboard,

Because pencils have a credible use, this single-minded store is able to transcend its novelty status. It’s more like a guitar shop than, say, a place devoted solely to popcorn or ice cream sandwiches (both of which are actual stores that exist within a five-block radius of this one).

We're sold. hope they have good sharpeners.

Critical Shopper A Pencil Shop, for Texting the Old-Fashioned Way By Molly Young (NYTimes)
CW Pencil Enterprise 100a Forsyth Street between Broome & Grand streets, Lower East Side