A wall of battered metal signs and car license plates is displayed neatly, all set out in a gallery, and some from random places in New York.

I like it a lot. I could see myself happily hiding here for weeks on end. It’s not a place I would ever have put him in a million years, though. It’s human and warm and screams of someone sentimental with a love of the simple pleasures in life and a love of this city. A tacky, bronzed liberty statue is on a shelf near the signs, and some odd ...