Two tattoo and piercing shops are merging to open at a new location in downtown Albany.
Shocker Tattoo, formerly located on Lark Street, and Modern Body Art, formerly located on South Pearl Street, have merged and are now located at one Modern Body Art location on North Pearl Street.
Albany Entrepreneur William “Tragedy” Yager owned both businesses. He says it is his seventh tattoo shop opening.
“Thank you very much Albany for letting me do what I do in this town. I am truly blessed and fortunate to be able to do what I want, when I want to and open the businesses I get to open. I am super excited about the new location.”
After the ribbon cutting ceremony Thursday, Yager explained why he chose North Pearl Street.
“I feel this is the most up and coming neighborhood. I feel this is where the customers will feel the most comfortable coming to, to get their services from all over the area. It tends to move around the city. But, right now, this is the stretch … I feel like it's a lot to do with what (Troy-based) Redburn (Development Partners) has done and Redburn really did a lot of development and put a lot of great buildings in here. It’s people like Chris Pratt that that built these amazing buildings and like rebuilt them and rehabbed them and gave us an opportunity to use it.”
The Downtown Albany Business Development Agency and Capital Region state Assemblywoman Pat Fahy were at the ceremony. City Treasurer Darius Shahinfar also attended, with Mayor Kathy Sheehan quarantining with COVID-19.
Yager has been a city hall ally and was tapped to be on Sheehan’s Cannabis Advisory Community Committee.
Fahy, a Democrat, says small businesses are the lifeblood of the economy.
“Having all this new energy, all these apartments opening up and we keep hearing from a few of the developers, they can't build them fast enough. They've got great occupancy rates, which is so important. It all is just a ripple effect in the RFQ, I should say the Request for Qualifications, is out now on (I-)787 as we look to reimagine that. It’s all about access, access to our greatest natural resource, which is the waterfront.”
Fahy referring there to a long-gestating project to study the future of the downtown interstate highway.
Soon after the formal proceedings, the shop opened. I stuck around to speak to customers. I checked out the different kinds of piercings on display and felt the back of my earlobe. I grew up in the Hudson Valley and while on a trip to Crossgates Mall, I somehow convinced my parents to allow me to get my ears pierced at 5 years old in the mall. It had been a long time since I wore earrings and the holes in my lobes closed years ago.
So, I decided to get them re-pierced.
After filling out the paperwork, I was brought back to the piercing station. One of the piercers, Gina Carbone, laid out the tools, including a needle. The first time I had my ears pierced, it was done at a kiosk in the mall with a gun. Carbone says back then it was a pretty standard procedure, but there is now much greater awareness of the higher risk of infection.
“It really is a whole different experience though, too. Because, a teenager with a gun with a two-hour training video with no health certification. Then to come to someone who's been doing this over a decade, you're like, ‘Oh, that's a lot easier.’ In theory, everybody thinks, ‘Oh, the needle hurts more.’ You’d much rather have something sharp than something that's going to create blunt force trauma …. I also hear a lot of scenarios where the gun got stuck on the ear, this and that and I'm like, ‘Oh my God, how are they even allowed to do that?’”
After everything was sterilized and the location of the piercing set, it was time for the actual piercing.
“So, I don’t do the whole counting thing, I do a breathing thing. So, we breathe in together and we breathe out together. Everything is a teamwork,” she told me.
While the memory from 26 years ago is hazy, I immediately noticed the smoothness of the needle versus the suddenness of a gun. The process was quick and relatively painless.
And so I now have pierced ears for the first time in more than 10 years. Anything for a story…
