Anthony Weiner’s Latest Redemption Tour Starts With a Haircut

Anthony Weiner walked in mostly unnoticed, quickly taking his place in a barber’s chair, an unlikely prop on his latest reclamation tour.

He offered some brief instructions — part it on the left, leave it a bit longer here — before attending to business: a sit-down interview at the famed Astor Place Hairstylists in Manhattan conducted by one of the shop’s owners.

Mr. Weiner, a former Democratic congressman, is in search of a public reset. His career and personal life imploded after he admitted to sending sexually explicit photos of himself to women, and was eventually convicted after he repeated the behavior with a 15-year-old girl.

Now, after a year and a half in prison, and much longer in public exile, Mr. Weiner is weighing a political comeback. He has been talking to constituents and says he may try to run in a Democratic primary for the New York City Council, where he served in the 1990s before being elected to Congress in 1998.

To do so successfully would mean persuading voters to give him yet another chance, and if that meant sitting down for a haircut and an interview on Wednesday morning, Mr. Weiner was more than willing.

“But on top, be careful,” he told Yakov Chulpayev, who has cut hair here since 1993. “I’ve got less working there now than I used to have.”