Macy’s and Gimbel’s

On a cold grey night in February I went to buy new sneakers.

Wandering into DNA Footwear on Fifth Avenue, the first thing I noticed -- after seeing how empty the place was -- was the age of the gentleman behind the counter. Not the young person who usually helps you fit your shoes and processes the sale but a man of a certain age -- that would be mine -- with a huge smile on this face. 

“Do you carry Stan Smiths?” I asked.

“No,” he said. “Your best bet is Nordstrom Rack. $48.” 

I looked at him, surprised, and launched into my Thelma Ritter-in-Miracle-On- 34th-Street imitation. 

“Imagine...Macy’s sending me to Gimbel’s…”

Ah, “Miracle on 34th Street,” the man said. “That was a good one.”

And therein began a 20-minute conversation about the pandemic, the plight of the small business, and how stores like DNA were surviving. The man told me he was the buyer and the sales clerk and sometimes the custodian. I understood. My husband works for a small business. He’s done it all.

In the end, I didn't go to Nordstrom Rack but purchased a pair of bright red Sauconys. It was a great shopping experience.

“We wouldn’t have had this conversation in Target,” I said to the man behind the counter.

“No, we wouldn’t,” he said as he flashed his smile at me and I headed back out into the cold February eve.

Ode to Eisenberg’s

I’ve been eating at Eisenberg’s for so long that I can’t remember when I first started going. Sometime in the ‘90s...

Certainly I went for the egg creams but I also went for the 1930’s atmosphere -- it opened in 1929.

How would one describe the color of the walls -- was it milky beige? And the marble counter, where Maria ordered a liverwurst with onion, Jonathan had the Matzoh ball soup, B got the turkey club, and I always asked for a tuna fish on toasted rye and coffee. Eisenberg’s was such a part of our universe that we always ordered the same meals, year after year.

It was always there, on a rainy day, when you wanted to stop in and have your sandwich and coffee at the counter, always the counter, because where else would you watch the theatre of the cook team flipping burgers, scrambling eggs, or yelling for a “whiskey down” (rye toast)?

Eisenberg’s was located in a small pre-war office building across from the Flatiron. It was so old-school that for a long time you could grab your coffee and donut then head upstairs to get your replacement ribbon at Gramercy Typewriter Co. If ever I wanted to pretend I was a character in a Bogart film…

When writer and editor Susan Chumsky saw the For Lease sign plastered to the window of Eisenberg’s she Tweeted “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!”

My sentiments, exactly.

https://www.grubstreet.com/2021/03/eisenbergs-closes-nyc.html

Smiles at San Toy

If you have an appointment at Citibank you will be separated from your clerk by a plexiglass shield most likely procured from a corporate vendor. If you’re picking up your dry cleaning at San Toy you will hand over your ticket through a shower curtain most likely purchased at the local dollar store.

I have been sending my laundry to the lovely folks at San Toy since I moved to Brooklyn in 1988. And nothing has changed. “The place looks like it’s held together by matchsticks,” my friend, Steve, once commented. Indeed, it’s still about as low tech as you can get. There’s a rotary dial telephone on the wall and your ticket is old school -- colored paper with the name, address, telephone number, and ticket number on it. At my newer, computerized dry cleaner down the street, the ticket seems to be a formality; if you don’t have one, the nice lady behind the counter simply looks up your name. I shudder to think what would happen to my shirts if I had no ticket at San Toy.

That said, I was recently convinced I had dropped off some shirts for my dad and had misplaced the ticket. I wandered in, weeks later, and a nice young man, who is most likely the son of the owner, was more than happy to help me. “What day do you think you brought them in?” he asked, as he fetched a Composition notebook and started looking up my supposed shirts in the “system.” 

While we never found said shirts -- I think I imagined I had brought them in and lost the ticket -- I was so grateful for the time the young man took to help me. And always, at San Toy, there is a smile, whether it is just to greet you, or to help you in your crazy quest to find some shirts you never dropped off.

The calendar hanging off a shelf of “brown-paper packages tied up with string” says that San Toy has been serving Park Slope for 60 years.

Thank goodness they have. It is an absolute pleasure doing business with them.

At Martine’s

On a beautiful August afternoon in 2019, my friend, Kate, and I wandered into Martine’s Auction, also known as Martine’s Antiques, a sweet store on East 78th Street, that, I’m happy to report, has survived the pandemic. 

Filled with picture frames, lamps, and prints, Martine’s is the kind of shop that you stumble upon a Manhattan side street and can’t believe your good fortune. The city was once filled with stores such as this.

Having lost my favorite letter opener years ago -- I’m sure I’ll find it if I ever move my couch -- I discovered a beautiful one while poking around Martine’s, made of brass and Art Nouveau swirls. It wasn’t until I recently found the receipt that I discovered the swirl at the end is a dragon’s head. I never noticed.

For the clerk, who I had struck up a conversation with, had hand written the receipt. It has my name and address and a description of the item: “Letter Opener with Dragon Head.” She even wrote the license number for the store on the bottom. What began the conversation was how lovely her handwriting was -- something I always notice and cannot refrain from commenting on, having practiced for years at the Rudolf Steiner School.

The clerk said she had grown up in Eastern Europe -- hence the handwriting -- and we talked about our memories of writing practice in all sorts of old school notebooks when we were children.

When I think about small businesses in New York, or anywhere for that matter, the items for sale are only a part of the picture. The other -- and for me, perhaps, the more important -- is the human connection. The conversation. The shared experience. In this case, the handwritten bill of sale is certainly the antithesis of a computer-generated receipt that will get tossed in the recycling bin. This one, on the other hand, is a keeper.

Clearly, someone else has been thinking about these side street shops, as well. They’ve created a website devoted to them: https://sideways.nyc/category/sidewalks/