When Kyota Umeki was just a boy in the early 2000s, his mother would walk with him on St. Marks Place, instructing him to keep his head down as they made their way to the family business, warning of a man with a bulldog who might aggressively ask them for money.<\/p>\n
The man wasn\u2019t anyone specific, but rather a type of person who flooded the notoriously shabby East Village street.<\/p>\n
Umeki and his mother were on their way down St. Marks to see his father Yuji, who was the founder and owner of Search and Destroy: a punk and vintage clothing spot on the block famous for its blaring music and endless racks of music memorabilia. Yuji also owned Kenka, a Japanese izakaya downstairs from the shop whose name translates to \u201cfight.\u201d Kenka is known for its cheap beer, dishes ranging from classics like donburi and more far-fetched meals like bull penis, and a row of pachinko machines by the bathrooms.<\/p>\n
Yuji immigrated from Japan to New York as a teen and eventually opened the store in 1998. Search and Destroy emerged on St. Marks Place when the street was still known for its counterculture crowd, strung out dive bars, walk-in tattoo parlors, and punk record and clothing stores. Before Yuji signed the lease, the storefront was vacant for years and next door to a community center for recovering addicts<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cA lot of people feel lost [on St. Marks] but there\u2019s a special energy in that building, where it\u2019s more of a healing,\u201d Umeki said, sitting in an office inside Search where his dad spent most of his nights working.<\/p>\n A few years after Search and Destroy opened, Yuji opened Kenka downstairs, so the punks and outcasts who lounged on the shop\u2019s wide stoop could eat and drink into the early hours of the morning.<\/p>\n \u201cThat stoop has always been, way before Search, the best stoop on the block,\u201d Kyota added.<\/p>\n In the decades since, boba stores, small-plate restaurants and luxe makeup brands slowly encroached on the East Village, and Search and Destroy became one of the neighborhood\u2019s last punk safe-havens. Yuji\u2019s tenacity kept the business going.<\/p>\n But in September of last year, he died suddenly after a brain aneurysm. He was 52 years old. Umeki, recalling his loss, said his father never would have forced him to take over the shop, but once his uncle flew in from Japan to support the family, his succession clicked into place.<\/p>\n \u201cMy uncle told me around the funeral, \u2018Your father is gone now. That was the only person with that kind of personality and mind in that generation,\u2019\u201d Kyota said. \u201cAnd he told me that my father\u2019s Search and Destroy ended, and from now on it\u2019s my Search and Destroy.\u201d<\/p>\n At just 23 years old, Umeki said he\u2019s ready to get his hands dirty.<\/p>\n Kyota Umeki<\/p>\n Joe Endo for Gothamist<\/p>\n \u201c\u200aI took over the clothing store, and my brother took over the restaurant within the month, and I’ve been working on Search every single day since,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n