Wild Hearts |
Mystik Moon
The out-of-control storefronts at 244 Commercial Street conceal one of the older buildings in town: a full Cape built around 1770. Like 234 Commercial Street, this building once had an ell extending to the sidewalk line that was at one time the Provincetown Gallery and Frame Makers. The current tenants include the Wild Hearts, which sells sex toys and accessories for women; and Mystik Moon, which specializes, as the name suggests, in the occult.
This was once Heinrich Pfeiffer’s house and art store. Kurt Robert Ruckstuhl and Sidney W. Bamford bought the building from Pfeiffer’s widow, Daisy, in 1958 and opened the Old Village Store — the first in what would become a group of gift shops run by Ruckstuhl and his wife, Irma, who also wrote Old Provincetown in Early Photographs.
From 1980 to 1985, it was the home of my first business, Sunburst Leather, with my partner Michael Levine, until we moved to 338 Commercial Street during the winter of 1985.
Thank you for this useful addendum.
In 1990, Ruby’s Provincetown Fine Jewelry opened for business at 244 Commercial Street, upstairs on the left. The Blue Poodle was our neighbor, up the stairs to the right. Denny and Wade were two opera queens from NYC. The Blue Poodle was a chachki shop from a bygone era. Directly across from 244 is the Crown and Anchor, summer evenings would always commence with the drag queens from Illusions in the crowded street barking for their show, “It’s Showtime!” In those days we were busy selling commitment rings, piercing ears and having a lot of fun!