Record Explosion, a cluttered store that has hand-lettered signs in its windows - also unthinkable, as far as the partnership is concerned - is another holdout.

It was a bright, cheerful, cluttered store.

The cluttered store was crammed with merchandise suitable for sleep-away camp.

Henry Weinstein, the owner of a cluttered store called Natural Furniture and a board member of the BID, said the banners have brought in new business.

Some ragged cluttered stores, and a basketball court with chains under the hoops instead of nets.

Two different retail universes collide inside this narrow, cluttered store at 660B Amsterdam Avenue near 92d Street, which sells rare opera recordings and rare and used comic books.

"It's curled-up toes, genie-style," said Jane Williams, co-owner of the tiny, cluttered store (open 2 to 6 P.M. Tuesday through Saturday).

From 1989 to 1993, Don Martin created a daily comic strip called The Nutheads, featuring a family that worked at "Glump's Market," a cluttered store.

Mr. Thompson's wife and daughter and 400 others crowded into the cluttered store to honor the dead author.

Job Lot is one of those cluttered strip-mall stores with clogged aisles offering discount items from toilet cleanser to telephones, from clothespins to coloring books.