Teaneck—Anyone driving down Cedar Lane in the past few weeks has had to do a double take. The former Blockbuster location, which has been empty for quite some time, has been filled with a huge Purim costume store. It appears that Teaneck has officially joined the ranks of Passaic, Brooklyn and Monsey, where a pop-up business can succeed in catering specifically to the Jewish population.
Itching over Iron Man? Hankering to be the Hulk? Manic over Minnie Mouse? Excited over Elmo? This was an easy place to find all these types of costumes. They even carried infant sizes. Who wouldn’t love a baby Superman? From licensed characters to generic, there was a wide array of costumes in every size.
In the same way that Halloween stores look for empty storefronts to rent for the few weeks before Halloween to sell costumes, the Purim Costume Store took over the empty location just down the street from Best Glatt, and filled it with everything for Purim dress up.
Owned by the parent company Halloween Adventure, they know their clientele, and kept the costume inventory generally modest and sensitive to the Jewish community. Though they didn’t have the standard Mordechai and Esther costumes, there were enough accessories throughout the store that the creative family could pull their own costume together. With a second location in Englewood, North Jersey residents had two new places for all their costume needs. Though prices may have been a few dollars more than on websites such as Amazon.com, some families found that the convenience of having a store close by where their children can try costumes on was well worth the few extra dollars. Visit http://purim.costumesupermart.com
In addition to the costume supermart, Teaneck also had its own costume gemach operating this year (http://njcostumegmach.com), hosted for select hours at Keter Torah. The gemach was started by Sarah Savetsky and Rivki Rosenthal in memory of Farvish Hirsch ben Shmuel Lev. If anyone is interested in donating to the gemach, please email [email protected]. Costume donations in good condition are accepted year round, and the gemach is available for use as well.
By Jenny Gans
