St. John’s Thrift Shop

Below street level at 146 1st Street in Troy, New York, a basement storefront known to locals simply as The Basement on First Street has spent decades quietly clothing and outfitting the Rensselaer County community. This is St. John’s Thrift Shop, the resale ministry of St. John’s Episcopal Church, a congregation marking roughly a century and a half of history under the parish motto Stone Upon Stone. The shop is open just two mornings a week, Wednesdays and Saturdays from 9 a.m. to noon, a modest schedule that belies how central it has become to the neighborhood around it. Inside, shoppers find what the church itself describes as a wide and unpredictable assortment of clothing, jewelry, household items, and other exotica, the kind of ever changing inventory that rewards regulars who make a habit of checking in every open day rather than treating it as a one time stop. Every dollar the thrift shop takes in is donated back out, funding Troy area ministries and organizations that serve people facing hardship, which means a shopper hunting for a bargain on a winter coat or a set of dishes is, in the same transaction, supporting food assistance and outreach work happening elsewhere in the parish. On Saturday mornings, the same building hosts a free vegetable distribution out of the Parish House Hall, so the thrift shop’s open hours often overlap with neighbors picking up fresh produce, turning a single visit into a stop for both a bargain and a bag of groceries. The shop has developed a following well beyond its immediate congregation. Students from nearby Sage College have made it a regular destination for affordable clothing and household basics, and shoppers from neighboring Watervliet cross the river to browse its shelves alongside Troy locals. What sets The Basement on First Street apart from a typical charity shop is less about the merchandise and more about the atmosphere the church has built around it: staff and volunteers describe it explicitly as a place where anonymous people become known, needs are met, and friendships are formed, a description that reflects an intentional effort to make the thrift shop a social space as much as a retail one. That mission first framing shapes everything from the pricing to the welcome shoppers receive at the door. For anyone looking to donate gently used clothing or household goods, the shop and its volunteer coordinator Sue can be reached directly through the church, and donations feed the same inventory that keeps prices low for shoppers who need them most. Set within a historic church building that has anchored its stretch of First Street for generations, the thrift shop offers a rare combination in a small city retail scene: genuinely low prices, a rotating and often surprising selection, and proceeds that stay local. St. John’s Thrift Shop, known to Troy as The Basement on First Street, is a twice weekly basement resale shop where affordable clothing and household finds directly fund ministries serving the city’s neighbors in need.