On Tuesday night, Nicolas Heller, a filmmaker and social media creator known as New York Nico, was surrounded by friends and fans at Astor Place Hairstylists, a cash-only, subterranean barbershop in the East Village.
“I’m drawn to the old-school spots,” he said.
Mr. Heller, 35, has built a following of over one million on Instagram with dispatches that spotlight the New York institutions you might not find in a Lonely Planet guidebook. He also creates affectionate profiles of local characters like Tiger Hood, who golfs on city streets, and the Green Lady of Brooklyn, who wears only green.
Astor Place Hairstylists, which has been around more than 75 years, was the perfect setting for a party held to celebrate the publication of “New York Nico’s Guide to NYC,” a book filled with odes to 100 small businesses across the city, including Liebman’s Deli in the Bronx, Luigi’s Pizza in Brooklyn and Lee’s Tavern on Staten Island. Written with the journalist Jason Diamond, the book is intended as a record of sorts, a way of committing these local businesses to the printed page, Mr. Heller said.
“I’m proud to have gotten small businesses into the book like Neir’s Tavern, a 195-year-old bar in Queens, the Chess Forum in Greenwich Village and Casa Amadeo, one of the oldest Latin music stores in the city,” Mr. Heller said.
Wearing a New York Yankees cap, he mingled with fans who threw him daps and asked him to sign their books.
A crowd gathered when Mario Bosco, a bowtie-wearing comedian who is a recurring New York Nico character, grabbed the mic to kick off a series of speeches and readings from some of the people featured in the book.
“Ladies and gentleman, gather around,” Mr. Bosco said. “Nico does so much for our beautiful New York.”
Loycent Gordon, who runs Neir’s Tavern, described the challenges that go with preserving the legacy of a bar founded in 1829. Up next was John Stratidis, who spoke of the pride he takes in running Cozy Soup ’n’ Burger, a Manhattan diner founded by his Greek forebears.
The next speaker was Michael Saviello, who managed Astor Place Hairstylists for almost 40 years before retiring this past summer. Known as Big Mike, Mr. Saviello became a character in the Nico-verse when Mr. Heller documented his late-life discovery of painting, a pursuit he undertook in a storage room during lunch breaks while sipping red wine.
“Everybody comes to the Village, right?” Mr. Saviello told the crowd. “Yeah, but not to see some new building that was just built. They come for old businesses. They want to come here and walk the streets, go to the old shoe store, go to Cozy diner.”
When the crowd cheered, Mr. Saviello pointed to Mr. Heller and declared that he should run for mayor.
As the night carried on, guests stood beside swivel chairs while eating heroes from Anthony & Son Panini Shoppe and pastries from Fortunato Brothers, two Brooklyn establishments profiled in the book.
Pat Kiernan, the longtime morning anchor for the local cable news station NY1, reflected on what Mr. Heller has meant to shop owners.
“Small businesses in New York now need champions like Nico to help them,” Mr. Kiernan said. “When he’s able to lend some social media love to a place, then his fan base takes care of the rest and throws their support.”
“CVS isn’t making the city special,” he continued. “Starbucks isn’t making the city special. What makes the city special are the places you can only find in New York, and it’s getting harder for those places to survive. There was a time once when a place that sold only videos or vacuum cleaner bags could still survive here.”
Marina Cortez Arrieta, who runs La Bonbonniere in the West Village, recalled Mr. Heller’s fortuitous visit to her diner.
“First Nico came,” she said. “Then the West Village came. Then the world came. Because he helps promote small businesses like us, we even added a New York Nico turkey club to our menu.”
Brandon Lloyd Adams, the co-owner of Lloyd’s Carrot Cake, was busy serving up boxes of his store’s delicacy. The recipe that made Lloyd’s a Bronx institution was created by his great-grandmother, who developed it in the Virgin Islands and passed it down to his grandmother, who bequeathed it to Mr. Adams’s father.
He took a moment to grouse with his fellow small-business owners about the challenges of running a mom-and-pop shop in New York these days.
“It’s just endless,” Mr. Adams said. “The paperwork. The fines. The inspections. The rents. The taxes. Any small business doing well is lucky. I think all of us here feel fortunate to be etched into Nico’s book, because it makes us part of the record.”
“Luckily, my business is doing very well, but it’s still my biggest fear, if we were ever to close,” Mr. Adams said. “To this day, I still think about this one slice of pizza I’d always get back when I was still in high school at a place called Frank’s on East 23rd Street. They just had the best sauce. And it’s gone. I will never have it again.”
In a quiet moment, New York Nico reflected on his quest to document a vanishing city.
“Whether because of the rent, not enough foot traffic, or because an owner grows old and wants to retire, small businesses closing is sadly part of life in New York,” Mr. Heller said. “You mourn them and then you have to move on. My hope is this book can help immortalize some of them.”
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