SALT LAKE CITY (ABC4) — We are closing out the dog days of summer by having some fun showing some “golden oldies” from our Craig Wirth. He starts year 55 at ABC4 next month.
Craig has been doing features for over a half-century. Today, we picked one from his days as a TV reporter in New York City.
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The story goes that there was a famous barbershop in Greenwich Village called Astor Place Hairstylists where tourists stopped to watch the latest wild hairstyles of the 1980s. The rest as we say is “Wirth Watching.”
“No one is more trendy than I am! So I got a prime chair right by the front window where folks could watch me get my spiked hair dyed,” Craig said.
Astor Place Barber Shop draws a crowd to watch people getting haircuts.
At this time, Astor Place was a family-owned barbershop owned by John and Paul Vezza, who left the business due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I remember its punk days, when kids would come out of there with haircuts from old Italian barbers with color in their hair, gel and spikes, and I just thought it was awesome,” Tritchter said in a press release. According to the press release, he got his first cut there in 2020 when he was 15. “Before Astor Place, my mother cut my hair — so it was my first grown-up haircut, and it was the first time I felt like an autonomous teenager.”
Craig mentioned that at Astor Place, people get spikes, cut sliced and all while the audience stands around and watches.
“This isn’t just a barber shop… this is something different … this is like a circus,” a guy on the street told Wirth.
Craig said people would flock to the place in droves.
“It’s so much of what made New York City vibrant. We fully believe it will endure another 75 years of driving style,” Tritcher said in 2020.
Wirth said the folks “were nice folks there with a sense of humor, and of course, they do regular haircuts too.”
“Wirth Watching” airs Sunday and Monday nights as part of ABC4 News at 10 p.m.