Paragon Sports was the spot where you copped all your official high end hiking gear. Paragon wasn’t the type spot you could steam thru. You would have had to be the illest booster of ALL TIME to rack ta Paragon. If you tell me you used to boost up there you lose all credibility to me. The 10th Floor of Lord & Taylor was an easier rack.
One of the points of status for a street kid in NYC was to be able to copp some shit from a store like Paragon. This is where you bought your K-Swiss, or your New Balance. Having a shopping bag from Paragon was on some level like Saks 5th Ave. Niggas from the hood didn’t go to Paragon, they went to Modell’s or V.I.M.’s or the local Army+Navy spot. Paragon was my spot since I copped my OG 40 Belows from there in 1987.
I had some bread from my nickel and dime late night white dealing in the downtown clubs. Let me not minimize the cash I had at the time since it was several hundred bucks. I was going to Paragon on a mission to blow my grip. The shit that I was hot for at the time was time immortalized. The hottest watch in the game was the Tag-Heuer ‘Formula 1’.
Tag had the sporty style and Swiss movement of the slickest watches but the pricepoint that allowed a regular nigga to live large. Paragon had a sale on the timepieces too. If I had another chance at this moment I would have copped two(2) watches. As a comic collector I was always fond of doubling up so that I always had a mint condition item to rock out for a special occasion.
I was on my way to Paragon on Monday after I got back from a weekend visiting my shorty at Morgan State. Things in B’More didn’t work out for me as I had planned. When I finally got back to Queens my life had changed irreparably. I wasn’t going to be copping a watch. I was lucky just to be alive. Chasing this lifestyle just almost got me merc’ked. You wanna hear the story?
