David B.
Yelp
On a recent visit to NYC, I was on a mission to look for vintage men's Levi's. I figured that out of all the places in the world, there must be at least one shop that truly specializes in them, to the point of matching my level of nerdiness of analyzing the cut, age, country of manufacture, etc of each pair.
After visiting a few other vintage and thrift stores around the city, I found my mecca at Front General Store. While I would have to pore through every pair at other shops to maybe find one diamond in the rough, it seemed that just about every pair of Levi's they had were high quality made in USA, with even some deadstock pairs of orange tabs in the mix.
The main stacks of denim are toward the back portion of the main area of the store. Their level of curation and organization (mixed up some by customers, but otherwise organized by cut and very clearly marked with sizes) does not come cheap as you can expect to pay $100+ for a pair.. you might be able to find similar pairs for half that elsewhere, but you'd really have to search through a lot to find them.
The small area in the very very back of the store is where the top gems are though. On one of the racks is the best denim they have, a mixture of redlines and even some big E's. You MIGHT get lucky running across a pair like these elsewhere, but the experience of being able to look through an entire group of them together is nearly museum-like.
This is definitely a destination shop worth the trek!