Sweets for the sweet – especially since it is/was Valentine’s Day, or Valentine’s Week.

Like we need a reason to sugar up—right? (Cue maniacal laughter.) Well, whether it’s to get a last-minute or belated holiday gift, or it’s because nothing less than swigging a nearly 8-pound jug of Hershey’s chocolate syrup will satisfy your sugar cravings, you can hardly do better than to visit It’Sugar (yup, that’s how it’s spelled; nothing I can do about it).

Call it a “lifestyle store,” call it a “museum of nonsense” (as staffers described it to us during its summer debut), this candy-and-more store, at 1870 Broadway, near 61st, will make you happy—even if you’re on a sugar-free diet.

How’s that? Um, see the above quoted descriptions, please. Betwixt and between the nearly 8-pound jugs of Hershey’s syrup ($19.99), 1.5-lb. boxes of Laffy Taffy ($17.99) and $3.49 per quarter-pound gummies and sours, there is such as Mr. Lee and the Desk Bunny.

Mr. Lee, who stands approximately 5 inches tall, houses a portable pair of chopsticks. Pull on his legs and—don’t worry, they’re supposed to come loose—they form black perfectly functioning ’sticks. Done using them? Clean and reinsert ’sticks, and Mr. Lee, who’s made entirely of glossy plastic, is ready to stand at attention on your desk or tabletop in his traditionally styled Asian suit, complete with mandarin collar and toggle closures, until called into further service; $14.50.

The Desk Bunny, which appears to be made of pale-pink porcelain, though is almost certainly resin, also sits desktop, waiting to serve. One version has a pair of pink-handled scissors stored in a space behind the bunny, whose paw-held carrot is magnetized on top to hold paper clips ($27.50); another model dispenses tape ($24.50).

Nearly exceeding legal limits for cuteness are the poly-satin throw pillows that each feature a different New Direction boy-band singer. Teen-dream Harry Styles—is this boy a hair-delivery system or what? I mean, have you ever seen a more profuse tumble of waves and whorls, dips and flips, rolls and ringlets? His lushly lashed eyes and sweetly smiling lips aren’t too shabby, either. Make some tween, teen—or perhaps yourself—very happy with one of these $14.99 items.

If you’re lucky, ND’s hit What Makes You Beautiful will also burst from the store’s sound system while you’re perusing these and other (yes, there are more!) band-related items. I admit I did a discreet head bounce or two, and then pretended I was doing something else.

More sweet calorie-free choices include the Jolly Rancher lip balm in “mega flavor” cherry; a .32-oz tube goes for $3.99. You will please, as per the instructions, neither eat this cosmetic, nor will you apply near your eye area. Also, don’t iron your clothes while wearing them, or use a hair dryer while you are sleeping. OK, the last two warnings are really not on this product’s packaging; however, they are actual warnings that are on actual appliances, so I thought it hilarious, er, I mean, prudent to add them.

Remember rock candy, made of sugar crystals? Here’s a guilt-free version: silvery chain necklaces that dangle sparkly pendants that look exactly like brilliantly colored versions of the old-time treat; $2.99.

Going back to that huge jug of chocolate syrup—yes, I’m obsessed with it—the label has a “pump” offer for dispensing the stuff; what, no IV options?

Photo Courtesy of CollectingCandy.com

Is New York’s increasingly renowned vintage candy wrapper collector, Jason Liebig, collecting offbeat art or merely living out some unfulfillable boyhood fantasy? And why are we, the public, so intrigued? 

Jason Liebig isn’t just like a kid in a candy store;  in many ways he is one. Except he’s 43 and the candy store is actually his Queens apartment where he houses over 10,000 neatly preserved vintage and modern candy wrappers.

What’s more, he tosses out any new candy prior to its wrapper’s preservation, a fact which would likely bring joy to no child anywhere. Liebig believes he has the only such collection in the city and that nationwide very few people, if any, share his particular hobby.

Liebig and his Willy Wonka-esque tendencies have only recently emerged from semi-anonymity. His collection and the website where he archives his ongoing project, CollectingCandy.com, were just featured on the long form journalism site Narrative.ly. His story was then quickly nabbed by the Huffington Post. At least one of his blog posts has gone viral, receiving more than 20,000 views in one day.

For Liebig, a former Marvel Comics editor and present day bartender, this is not about reliving a childhood love of sweets, or even really the candy itself; his collection is about art.

“In a way, my appreciation started out of my love of graphic design and art,” says Liebig.

“My dream has never been to work in the candy industry,” he explains. “I’m interested in a very specific niche part of it, that has thus far been ignored by much of the candy historians, which makes sense, since the packaging designs are often forgotten and lost.”

“But that’s what I love about it,” he adds. “I realized there was the whole segment of consumer goods packaging that really was an art world and history of art unto itself.” It’s this segment Liebig chronicles on his website.

***

Nearly everyone collects something, most without realizing it. These collections vary in size from a couple tokens to essentially every item found in a pathological hoarder’s domicile, and in type from buttons to real estate. Many would argue “collecting” is more about the psychology that drives one to accumulate rather than the physical items themselves.

New York-based psychoanalyst Dale Karp explains: “People collect things for a variety of reasons. Sometimes they collect just for the sake of it, sometimes the art of it, sometimes the value of it.”

“Amassing lots of things one loves should not be confused with the compulsion to possess or own things,” he continues. “There can be a fine line separating a hobby from a drive which might be pathological.”

Karp equates “pathological” with those who “hoard purposeless quantities of meaningless things.”

Don’t accuse Liebig of hoarding though; he is careful to note he keeps his apartment relatively clean of trappings from his candy-related endeavors. Walking into his apartment you may have an inkling from the decor, but until you start digging you could never know the true extent of his fascination.

Some experts say collecting items, particularly those reminiscent of childhood, is simply nostalgic. Other times they observe collecting to be about gaining a sense of control over a lost period of time.

According to life management expert Kimberly Friedmutter, “to the collector, collecting childhood symbolism is simply a subconscious way of rectifying and making amends with the time when we were the most vulnerable.”

“Collecting is protecting,” she says.

Without knowing him personally, Karp is quick to dismiss the theory that Liebig’s hobby necessarily has something to do with, say, some unfulfilling trick-or-treating experiences from his youth. Further, despite the amassment’s uniqueness, does it really differ in any way from a more ubiquitous comic book or baseball card collection?

“Candy wrappers can have pop culture significance in America,” Karp says. “They might represent our values about food, vintage art, advertising, wastefulness, consumption, etc.”

“Do we question Andy Warhol’s interest in Campbells soup in terms of his personal concerns about food?” Karp asks. “You can wonder about the significance of candy to this particular collector, of course, but any conclusion about the unconscious symbolism of candy wrappers is over the top pop psychology.”

Liebig’s earliest memory of engaging with candy wrappers — or candy — on a more profound level than the average individual dates back to 1992 when he first saved an M&M’s peanut butter wrapper, which remains neatly maintained to this day.

“It really struck me graphically,” he says.

Though Liebig emphasizes the process is in large part artistic, he often finds himself wondering how some long vanished candy might have tasted. Moreover, he wonders at the accuracy of his memories of childhood tastings past.

“I loved the Mars Marathon bars of the 1970′s, and I’ve found that they were very much like the Cadbury Curly Wurly bar,” says Liebig. “In the last few years, I’ve had many of the UK’s Curly Wurly, but I still wonder if there were subtle differences from these, and what I had as a kid in the Marathon.”

***

Why are we, the viewing public, so fascinated with Liebig and his collection? Why all the blog hits — why is the media catching on? According to Karp, “maybe deviations from the norm tap in to our unconscious wishes to be extreme and simply act out for us what we don’t dare do, like eat a million candy bars.”

Liebig points out many collectors like him have a specific goal in mind: “To most buyers, what’s best to them is getting the ‘one they remember’ from their personal life. And I can agree with that,” he says. “That’s what got me started on the whole thing.”

“It’s my way to add to our collective nostalgic consciousness,” he adds. Perhaps then we the viewers are merely reaping this nostalgia Liebig and his archives confer.

While this is where the experts might nail Liebig on the connection to his childhood memories, the issue of what psychoanalysts may think of Liebig’s passion is one he approaches with dismissive caution.

“I’ve often said that, in the modern age, we have extended adolescence well into adulthood across the board,” Liebig says.  “We are a progressively fun and silly culture.”

“Of course, New York City extends adolescence in a host of other ways,” he notes.

“I don’t know that my hobby is so much extending a childhood fantasy, but I think it is a fascination with the trappings of adolescence, and in a way a kind of literal extension of it,” Liebig explains.  “I don’t see myself as stuck in some phase of incomplete development though, anymore than the historian who studies the Beatles is stuck in the 60′s.”

Liebig is also wary of promoting his collection too much, as he told Narrative.ly, for fear of who might similarly glom on to his hobby and exorbitantly run up the memorabilia’s valuation. Scarcity does not make Liebig see dollar signs, it just makes him excited, like an art-lover stumbling upon a rare work.

His biggest hopes for his collection are a coffee table book or perhaps a television show. “I don’t want to have an empire, but I would like to make a living and have a lot of fun with it,” he says. So far, it sounds like the project is at least living up to the “fun” requirement.

Liebig likely won’t be listening to the head-shrinking naysayers anytime soon either.

“I have a sense of humor about this stuff because it’s just a bunch of things,” he notes. “But when I sit down to tackle the history of it, I do so as an adult, and as seriously as I do anything.”

By Amanda Woods

Some Upper West Siders don’t have a sweet tooth for Sugar and Plumm, a store and café set to open on Amsterdam Avenue near 78th Street later this summer. They are concerned that the shop’s sugary selection—similar to the offerings at several other shops in the area—is unhealthy for neighborhood children, and are frustrated that the eatery is taking over a space previously occupied by five small local businesses.

The eatery also offers sandwiches, salads and burgers, to name a few, but for some neighbors, its focus on sweets is alarming.
“Kids go out to lunch,” said Joey Ronga, an Upper West Side resident. “They will be able to buy a lot of candy. I feel sorry for the teachers who will have to deal with the sugar rush and the crash.”

Sugar and Plumm would be one of many sweets-selling establishments on the Upper West Side. Within walking distance, pedestrians can find Crumbs Bake Shop, Insomnia Cookies, Sixteen Handles, Momofuku Milk Bar and ChocoBolo. “I don’t think we need any more chocolates and cupcakes,” said one passerby who declined to give her name.

But Marion Nestle, the Paulette Goddard professor of nutrition, food studies and public health at New York University, thinks Sugar and Plumm’s opening will not amplify dietary and obesity problems on the Upper West Side.

“It’s hard for me to believe that one store will make much of a difference at this point, especially if it’s expensive candy,” Nestle wrote in an email.

A Sugar and Plumm spokesman said that the store’s bistro offerings make it different from an ordinary candy store, and healthy options are available as well.

For other locals, the store’s sugary offerings aren’t the main problem. Five local small businesses that used to occupy the portion of the street now taken up by Sugar and Plumm’s single storefront closed down last year because they weren’t given renewal options once their leases expired.

David Schatsky, an Upper West Sider who created the website StopSugarandPlumm.com and a Facebook page by the same name that attracted a small following of 48 “likes,” said these closings are his biggest concern.

“I don’t have any problem that they’re opening up,” Schatsky said. “I was opposed to the loss of the neighborhood shops. The shops that used to be there were providing useful services to the neighborhood, and I was concerned about the consolidation of five different shops into one large business. I was concerned about negative impact on the character of the neighborhood.”

Schatsky added that he created the anti-Sugar and Plumm website because he was displeased with the management’s original design proposal.

“It was the direct result of the owners of Sugar and Plumm presenting their design at the community board meeting,” Schatsky said. “The neighborhood was shocked at the design and the arrogance of the company’s management.”

The Landmarks Preservation Commission originally turned down Sugar and Plumm’s storefront design proposal, but after some changes to the plan—toning down the “cutesy” look and considering the neighborhood’s landmark character—the commission approved.

Leslie Richmond, another resident, is disappointed in the store’s opening, relating it to a larger trend she sees in the neighborhood of big-box stores driving out smaller local businesses.

“I think it’s either another Duane Reade or some high-priced cupcake shop,” Richmond said. “I think, where have all the shoe repairs gone? I grew up in this neighborhood, and I miss that. It’s kind of changing into a neighborhood I don’t really recognize.”

Upper West Sider Akshay Kamath, though, enthusiastically approves the store’s opening.

“Why not?” he asked. “You can never have too much [sweets]. It’s better than a closed, empty space.”