Best Place to Buy Antiques

Heading south on Old Dixie Highway through Fort Lauderdale, a sign to the left welcomes folks to Wilton Manors just before a sharp right curve in the road. The highway then jaunts almost immediately back to the left, but not before a bright yellow sign warns drivers to take the near-hairpin at 25 miles per hour. Dangling beneath the warning sign is one that announces your arrival onto a stretch known as "Antique Alley." Really a sleepy section of Old Dixie Highway just south of NE 26th Street and dotted by auto-repair shops and antiques dealerships, the small strip features some 30,000 square feet of floor space devoted to old stuff. That square footage is shared among ten quaintly overflowing stores, where junk hunters can track down that perfect '50s dining table, antique martini shaker, or Victorian end table. Overlap is inevitable, but each shop seems to have a specialty: Serendipity (9545671954) has 18th- to mid-19th-century furniture, including hand-painted and decorated pieces; Dixie Treasures (954-567-0095) features American, European, and Asian furniture from the mid-1800s to the present; the oddly named Recollections and Pot Luck Cigars (954564-3504) boasts a fully stocked walk-in humidor along with 6000 square feet of collectibles; T. Pletscher Antiques and Art (954-5670054) stocks a large selection of fine art and prints in addition to antiques; Nostalgia Modern (954-537-5533) proudly purveys furniture and home accessories from the Art Deco to disco eras; iron pieces and antique garden furniture are the highlights at Wilting Manners (954-564-7994); and Miller Antiques and Collectibles (9545376061) offers on-site clock repair along with its clocks and glass items.