New York City’s new luxury cannabis stores are works of high-art

Illegal, slapdash dispensaries have taken over the city. Now, a new breed of high-design shop is looking to change the way people buy cannabis.

If it wasn’t for the six-foot-tall sculpture of an immaculately rolled joint in the foyer of the Union Square outpost of Travel Agency, you might not know that you’re entering a cannabis store. The space, designed by the architecture firm Leong Leong, belongs in the same family as New York City’s retail temples—the Khaites, Kiths, and Aesops of the world that demonstrate how good retail is about a lot more than a transaction. With its egg-shaped Space Age sign hanging from the contoured ceiling, soft lighting, and long white counter, it’s like Saarinen’s TWA terminal meets a James Turrell sculpture.