19 and 21 Centre Street
Jacob Abajian
1884 to 1937
The Oriental Bazaar was a long-running business on Petticoat Row founded by Armenian Jacob Abajian in the 1880s. Abajian sold a wide variety of articles, including carpets, porcelains, silverware, paintings, souvenirs, and sundry curiosities, both local and imported. A canny businessman, Abajian promoted his business through advertisements in the local papers, offering exotic wares like “Chinese, Japanese, and Egyptian arts and very fine Turkish, Persian, and Afghanistan rugs, carpets.” His promotional tactics included such offers as free round-trip train fare to customers from ’Sconset, and one-year subscriptions to the Nantucket Journal (in which his ads regularly appeared) for purchases over one hundred dollars. A mainstay of downtown Nantucket shops for over fifty years, Abajian’s Oriental Bazaar was a pillar of Nantucket’s business community on Petticoat Row.
Older Nantucketers remember Abajian’s Oriental Bazaar for its exotic, cluttered, and musty interior, with a distinct aroma that many took to be hashish. People recall that Abajian used to spread out his carpets on the sidewalk in front of the store.
GPN444
