The Guardians, the book.

My name is Anastacia “Stacy” Fahnestock. I’m fifty-eight years old. I’ve been selling antiques for thirty-one years.

I’m married to Scott Evans, and we run the store together in Philadelphia.

Our business started at a very grassroots level in the early 1980s. We both had art degrees, but I was waitressing, and Scott was a carpenter.

I needed to have my wisdom teeth pulled, and to get together the money, Scott and I used our trash-picking skills to hunt for goods and set up at antique shows

On our very first weekend, we made five hundred dollars. We realized that we had a gift for figuring out what people wanted, and so we started selling things we found on the street.

Twice a month, on Saturdays, we would have a street sale. Our clientele grew bigger and bigger week by week, so we knew we had to make it more official.

Back in 1985 we heard about the opening of a flea market in a former synagogue and decided to rent a space there for two hundred dollars a month.

We moved to our current, much bigger location in 1996. This block was a rat-infested shit-hole, the neighborhood wasn’t safe, but we decided to buy the building from the owner.

We renovated the whole building and rented one of the apartments to a family who needed a place to live.

We do have a lot of energy in here. In the place that we’re standing right here, we had bought several things that came from an estate where the person died violently: he had a lung aneurysm, and he basically coughed himself to death

He drew his final breath while on the toilet. He was in a second-floor apartment. The body just leaked and became watery as it decomposed until the neighbors downstairs noticed flies and a stain on the ceiling, so they called the realtor. So that was the situation that we came into: there was blood everywhere. When his things came in, it was summer, so they had a terrible smell

That’s just business though. We bought some things, and we brought them back to the garage, and we made sure that everything was cleaned and disinfected and after about a week I put them out on the floor.

This person had very specific tastes, so everything made a nice display together as a little unit. I had them all here up on top of this showcase on the very first day that they were on the floor.

One day this woman came by. She’d never been in the store. She was on her way down the street to apply for a job as a masseuse, and she says: “I just love your store I just want to take a look around.” I was way on the other side as she did her loop. She came back to me, and she said “Do you know where everything in here comes from?”

I replied, “Most things. I mean, sometimes we get into a house where we’re the very last person in, you know, so it’s the lawyer who’s there, so we don’t really always have a history of who owned it, but in this case, we do.” I asked her, “What are you sensing?” She said, “Well there’s one area in here where I’m distraught, and I feel like the person had a very violent death,” and she came right over to the case with the man’s former belongings, and it was just remarkable; I get the chills when I think of it. And she was just so into it. And I told her the story, she thanked me and left. I never saw her again

We’re in business because we love old things. We love curating, we love finding interesting things. We love the history of it; it has become an emotional experience. You know some things are unique in time. There are times that I have sold things that I have regretted because I know I’ll never see an item like that again. If I have too much of an emotional attachment to an object, it won’t come to the store, or we’ll keep it in the back closet, not on the floor. To me, the heart of the shop is the puppets. If I sell those, I think I’ll close up. But they’re very expensive, so... [laughs] We’ve had them for twenty years. I don’t know if I could sell them.

I’m Scott Evans. I’m sixty years old. I started in this business with Anastacia thirty years ago.

We bought a house that needed work and it needed to be furnished, so we started trash picking for stuff to put in the house. Some of it was broken, and I was a carpenter at the time, so I started fixing things. We worked on broken stuff in the basement of that house, and then we got another place, and then we got this place, and I took over the garage. We used to park cars in there, but it’s been a long time since that happened. I ended up collecting the tools, and I learned how to fix antique furniture. I used to do a lot of refinishing but not so much of that anymore, but I still do a lot of repairs. We also make lamps—we have another room that we do that in—but this is furniture in here.

I love my job. I guess I could say I do. I don’t work for anybody, you know, that’s why I love it.

When we decide to stop everything, Anastacia and I, I guess the stuff will go to auction, and then it’ll be condos, but we’re not retiring. People in this business don’t retire they just do it until they’re dead, you know? So that’s what it’s like. That’s what’ll happen. One of us will die.

I won’t do it without her; I’m not going to do this by myself. She started this, and I work for her. That’s basically it. You know I live to make her happy. That’s all

My name is Marie Gagné, I am a passionate collector. Rétro Ville is an antiques shop. I sell objects from the time of my grandparents’ childhood. Most of these things have disappeared from circulation, then reappeared about forty years later, and have become highly sought after by collectors.

This shop has only one goal: to make people happy. We do not take ourselves seriously. Time stops here, and we find ourselves in another era. The 1950s were magical years because they arrived just after the Second World War. We also sell some objects from the 1960s and 1970s. People come here to relive their childhood or the childhood of their parents or grandparents.

Nowadays everything goes by so fast—blame it on new technologies. In my shop, people can disconnect from the craziness of the 2000s, and it makes them happy.

It is a unique shop in Montréal where you can immerse yourself in the history of the city and its factories.

We mostly sell originals, even though we carry a few reproductions.

My husband came up with the idea of this shop in 1978 after finding a metal tobacco box from the 1940s. People who collect and preserve the objects of time are essential. My late husband was very good at finding these things.

We buy most of the things people bring to us. We try as much as possible to offer fair prices. It did not cost much in the 1950s, so we try to keep it accessible to everyone. Visiting the shop is definitely an unforgettable experience

Rétro Ville is now permanently closed

My name is Richard Lévêque, I’m sixty-eight years old, and I’m a hoarder. I opened my shop in 1980 and quickly decided to focus on rentals. Little by little I started to collect and offer wacky objects to our customer base: we get along very well with people from movie/stage sets. My passion for objects and collecting them is still very strong. I love being fascinated by small little harmless objects.

I know it doesn’t look like it, but there’s some kind of logic in the way the objects are displayed: I try as much as possible to keep them organized in groups in order to make them easier to find, but it’s still tricky for a first-time customer to get around without my help. Nothing here is for sale. I like to think of my store as a deck of cards: the game is never the same even though the cards are.

My name is David French. I’m forty-seven years of age. I’m a male, or at least I was last time I checked. Things change so quickly these days. Younger generation. [laughs]

I’m the manager of Mark Sullivan Antiques & Decoratives in London.

It’s a great place to work. Not only are you surrounded by beautiful objects but there’s also a great sense of history that you get to talk about every day with different people, and you’re continually learning new things.

People want to come in and tell you about their collections, or stories and mythology, and the exploits of these great people from history, and of course, there are always stories I have never heard that only increase my knowledge and turn my curiosity.

I had a stall in Camden Market thirty years ago, which is where I met Mark, the owner of the shop. We became very close friends over the years I worked at Camden Market. But when the market became a little bit untenable for us, he asked me if I wanted to manage a shop for him in the West End because he was going to open one and

I sort of jumped at the chance and now here I am.

It’s very convenient as well, because I get to take my dog with me, which is absolutely delightful, having my best friend and companion with me at work. Hopefully

I’ll be here for at least another twenty-two years.

My name is Guylaine Sirard, I’m sixty-one years old and I’m the owner of D’lci, dailleurs et d’hier [From here, elsewhere and yesterday], a cute flea market in Montréal.

I used to tell Philippe, my partner, how to run his antiques store and art gallery. He never listened to me. That’s why I opened my own shop in 2005, thinking that I would really do better than him. I work so very hard, but it’s really harder than I thought.

The joke’s on me now.

My name is Philippe, I’m sixty years old, and I’m Guylaine’s partner.

Guylaine used to work in a community centre and would spend the rest of her time at home. She would prepare supper and call me every night for me to come home to have dinner with her. I was always working, always working. My clientele came mostly in the evening, so I stayed open late. Guylaine would frequently get angry; she even thought I was cheating on her with another woman.

When she opened her shop, the roles were reversed: I’m the one always calling her because she is never at home for supper. She now understands what it’s like to be a small shopkeeper. We work all the time. All the time. It’s crazy.

Back then, I was just trying to make ends meet. Today sheis. It’s really funny.

My name is Gary Stone, I’m seventy-two years old, and I’m the owner of Stone Age Antiques.

My father Milton and I started this business forty-nine years ago. He was a landscape contractor, and through landscaping, he used to buy cabins, anchors, chains and things like that. People started to come to us and say, “Gee,

I saw the job you did there, I’d like to get a cannon or an anchor for my yard.” So we started to collect a bunch of stuff, and our assortment of antiques grew. Then when

I got older, around eighteen, I said, “Dad I’m tired of digging holes. That’s the business we ought to go into.” So we borrowed some money from a friend, and we got into selling and renting historic artefacts including cannons, swords, boat parts, and prehistoric items, like a 20,000-year-old wooly mammoth tusk.

My father died about twenty-five years ago, and I have carried on since then. So that’s how it all got started.

My son Ryan runs the store with me now. We rent out tons of things to major motion pictures, TV shows, local playhouses, for print ads, magazines, themed parties, store displays, restaurants—we’re a one-stop shop for set designers, interior decorators, artists, creative minds and the general public.

We acquired most of the antiques throughout the years, often through different estate sales. We are one of the most interesting and fascinating places to shop in the country!

We’re far away from the beaten track. People have to hunt us up to come here.

We like that because that means they’re coming to buy. We don’t get many tyre kickers.

On June 12, 2818, Ryan Stone announced on Facebook that they sold the store

_———

Didn’t we Meet at stane Age Antiques?

Hello, my name is Francine Gadoury, I will be sixty-five next month.

Back in 1981, Denis, a colleague from work, took me ona date to the cinema. We have never left each other since that day.

In 1989, we opened an antiques shop specializing in old toys in Frelighsburg, in the Eastern Townships.

Denis had learned a lot from old toys. He fixed and gave a second life to these poor, broken little toys.

Our house was crumbling under the insane amount of objects amassed over the years, so we decided to rent an apartment to store and sell them. One day, a man showed up and offered us the rental on a commercial space that he owned. He was also fond of antiques and introduced us to the world of antique toys and his superb collection of fire trucks.

This is how we came to organize the first toy festival of Frelighsburg, which attracted nearly ten thousand visitors over a weekend in this tiny village of a thousand inhabitants. People came from everywhere to see it. It was fantastic because we had turned the village into a toy village. Toys were everywhere, in every building. It was really nice.

We also created an event called “The Little Ancient Circus” where toys were the stars of a circus. We had toys from a hundred years back. People got emotional when they saw that. It was wonderful. The festival lasted four years, from 1990 to 1994.

We then moved to Montréal. Our first shop was on Notre- Dame Street, the second one on Amherst. We sold vintage items and collectibles. Denis was never at a loss for words and he knew everyone. We tried to start the toy festival in Montréal, but it was too complicated because of the multitude of events going on and fewer suitable venues. We dropped it after a couple of years.

One day Denis learned that he had contracted hepatitis C. For nearly five years, he tried all kinds of new treatments to try to get rid of this damn virus. But unfortunately, drugs and treatments accelerated the disease and turned it into liver cancer. He died a few months after being diagnosed, in October 2013.

We started this shop together. It was too difficult to continue without him, so I left Montréal and moved back in the Eastern Townships to be with my family.

A few months ago, I followed my sister and moved to the Pacific Coast of Mexico where I opened a wine shop.

I’ve always had a passion for good wine and decided to share it with the people here. New life, new adventures but same guardian angel guiding and watching over me.

My name is Catherine Auriol, and I was born in 1965. I have always lived in Montréal. My mother comes from a family in the lower nobility of Outremont, and my father is from Perpignan, a provincial town in France.

At the crossroads of these two different worlds, there was a bipolarity, in their personalities, ambitions and character, in their conformism against rebellion, their sense of belonging and tradition versus that of uprooting and statelessness.

I went to university because that was what they expected of me. I obtained a master’s degree in anthropology in 1993. I couldn’t find any job in that field.

The following year, I discovered working with clay. I was mostly interested in sculpture, although throwing appealed to me too. As if I was under a spell, I applied for ceramic school, and everything went very fast from there. I did twelve-months training, which was clearly not enough to learn the rudiments of this ancient craft.

Then, I opened my own workshop and started to work on my first exhibition in 1997. The ceramists’ world was a generous and friendly family. I had finally found a home for my soul.

After an internship in France, I came back to Montréal with the certitude that my upcoming workshop should definitely have a showroom. In 1999, my mother and I bought an old building on Laurier East, and we turned it into a studio-boutique. Our goal: promoting local handmade ceramic art and offering ceramics classes to people wishing to learn this craft.

In twenty years everything has changed: practice, aesthetics, my desires, my creations. My son has grown up, I have aged, I have lost my father and my husband, but I still have the need to create from clay. Customers have changed, too. They are interested in handmade, local production, instead of industrially produced things. They dive into it without restraint. The classes are full, people want to occupy their hands and relax their busy minds. Since 2015 I have made a place for myself supplying the most famous restaurants in Montréal, Québec and Toronto. It allows me to pay the bills, to provide three people with jobs. The Gaia shop made it through many storms; it’s an underground force. But beyond this, it’s humility that makes us feel proud, it’s through self-realization that we can remain down to earth and offer timeless things.

My name is Avok Sislian. I was born on November 22, 1933.

My father was a shoemaker. He worked for a French officer for whom he made luxury shoes by hand. After the departure of the French man, my father was left with a lot of shoes. A friend offered him to sell them to Saida, where he knew a British officer who could buy them. One night, there was a bombing, and the man escaped to save his skin.

Back in Beirut, my father rented this space and opened this workshop with another gentleman. They started without machines and did everything by hand. They then bought their first machine on credit. They made the first payment of a thousand pounds, then a second of four hundred pounds. It was a good deal because it was worth two thousand.

In 1947 they acquired a brand-new machine from the United States. This is the one I still use today. When it breaks down, I repair it myself because it’s impossible to find spare parts anymore. I do everything with my hands. I do not fix the shoes; I make them from scratch. Machines nowadays just stick the soles; I sew them.

I started to work with my father around 1955. He taught me everything.

I got married in the 1960s. My children are now all married, and it’s my son-in-law who drives me to my shop every morning around half-past seven. I spend all day here and eat the lunch my wife cooked for me. In the evening, it’s either my son-inlaw or my daughter who takes me home. We are a large, very united family.

We meet every two weeks on Sundays, young and old, around the same table to spend time together.

When I was a kid, I was always told to treat the elderly with respect. And that’s how

I raised my children. Nowadays, times have changed, and young people place less and less value on older people.

I had some health problems, especially with my legs because I spend my days standing. The doctor gave me some pills, and I’m feeling better now. I’m happy with my current state: I work, I tinker, it’s okay. I do not have a lot of work, but it’s better than nothing.

People often ask me if somebody is going to take over my store and my job when

I decide to retire. Unfortunately not. Nobody is interested in learning a job that does not pay much. I tell them “after me, the deluge”; they can do whatever they want with this place after I’m gone.

My name is Vincent Pirimian, I’m seventy-eight years old, and I’ma Catholic Armenian from Lebanon. I am married to a French woman. We had lived in Gemmayzeh, a neighborhood of Beirut for fourteen years when the war started. Every day I would find my wife in tears. She was terrified and didn’t want to die in Lebanon. Following my mother’s advice, we left Lebanon and moved to France in 1980

In Lebanon, I had thirteen employees working for me, making leather sandals. Here I’m my own boss in this tiny 21-square-foot shop [laughs] located under the porch of the former Maneége Duphot, where high-society people used to come to ride horses until 1914.

I fix everything: bags, heels, soles and suitcases. I am often asked the meaning of all these pictures glued from floor-to-ceiling in my shop: they are mostly postcards that I have received from all around the world and images that I cut out of magazines.

I love to tell jokes and make riddles. Besides I sometimes give discounts to people who guess the answers.

My name is Lorena Agolli, I’m thirty-two years old. I’m the owner of Sole Survivor, an all-female cobbler shop in Toronto. I’ve owned the business for three years

I got into this trade by pure accident. I dislike feet, [laughs] so I made a pair of moccasins for myself one time. I fell in love with the fact that my hands created something that I could wear and feel really good in. I did more research, apprenticed for a year with a shoemaker, and then I worked here part-time. The previous owner wanted to sell the business, and I decided to take a leap of faith and buy the shop and have grown it to where it is today. Being an immigrant in a country, I felt very ungrounded and I wanted to have a sort of tradition attached to myself that I can leave behind when I go. Also, our culture is avery throwaway culture; I just want people to understand the value of a human being making something and then wanting to be attached to that other soul that really created the pair of shoes. So if they buy good quality shoes, I can keep them up for twenty or thirty years for them, and the shoes or bags or jackets can grow with them and experience their life and become alive in themselves and get character.

It’s hard not to go with the trends and the flow that everyone is going towards, which is you know, social media and buying stuff online and everything, maybe also because ata young age my parents moved around a lot, that I felt like I was in that state of like nothing I was connected to and I wanted something more humbling and having my own business especially in this type of trade, I feel the everyday hustle, that if I can’t make rent or if I can’t eat, it’s because I wasn’t working hard enough and that feeling of wanting to work hard enough is what is keeping me alive today. It keeps my soul alive. It keeps me more creative, and I’m so much happier versus sitting in an office behind a computer and just leaning back and not feeling anything because I Know that my paycheck will come in from someone else, so I’m not even gonna give it my hundred and 10 percent because like whatever I’ll get paid.

I want to earn my place in this world you know. I think it’s important that when this physical body leaves, you can leave something behind that is going to affect other people in the long term. When people get married, I give them a free shoe shine, and I put my love in the shoes because I want them to feel that when they’re walking down the aisle. So it’s important to feel a connection between things. I am trying to “heel” what exists and not add more waste to this planet. Knowing that my bare hands have extended the life of a pair of boots or leather goods allows me to feel more connected to this earth, and that’s something that I’m trying to instil in my customers. Invest in quality over quantity.

I am not too worried about the next generation. I think they can probably do things way better than we could because they’re smarter about technology. Even for me; the reason why this trade is working better than maybe the older guys is that I’m using social media to my advantage and all that stuff, bringing more awareness and getting to do things like this.

I really take what I do very seriously. I am trying to connect myself with my customers, so that it’s not a quick turnaround of them coming, dropping off the shoes an hour later, coming back and I don’t know who’s who. Sometimes I remember the person that walked in and I won’t know what their ticket number is but I know where their box is. I do think I’m a Guardian. I’m a sole survivor. I’m totally trying to survive this trade.

My name is Habouba Ishac. I wasn’t born on March 5~—as stated on my national identity card—but on February 11, 1960.

I went to school at the college of the Immaculate Conception near our house in Achrafieh, a Christian neighborhood in eastern Beirut.

My mother, Mounira, left Batroun, a port district in northern Lebanon, at a very young age to look for work in Beirut with her brothers. They settled together in arented room.

She found a job as a saleswoman in a furniture and supplies store owned by Mr. Hasbani. He bought her a sewing machine so she could make slipcovers to protect the furniture during deliveries—at that time nylon rollers did not exist. He then asked her to make curtains, then cushions.

After a while, my mother, strong from her experiences, left her her job and opened her own shop.

In 1969 she rented a small stall in the dis-

PY ae Hida nm trict of Tabaris. Her clientele began to grow little by little thanks to the positive word of mouth from her satisfied customers. My mom offered impeccable service and even went to her clients to take measurements for the curtains and furniture, and she also took care of the delivery.

One day, the owner of the building in which her shop was located announced that his building was going to be torn down.

He compensated her, and she moved to the place where I am today.

I left my job around 1990 to work with my mother. She worked here until her death in 2006 at the age of eighty-three.

I continued her work by modernizing it, and I created new items, like patchwork bedspreads, and cushions—also called “pancakes”—for chairs. I also cover small stools and small seats.

Despite the current economic situation and the slump that reigns in the city, I’m not doing too badly, thank God

My name is David Rogers, I’m seventy-four years old. I’m originally from Denver, Colorado. I moved to Montréal in 2001 where I run a small atelier-boutique. I offer a large selection of original handmade leather items and expert and attentive leathergoods repair, restoration and consultation I pride myself in that I can create or copy anything in leather. For me, success is about making a living honestly with a job you really enjoy.

My shop is located in Plateau Mont-Royal, a charming and old neighborhood known for its small and unique specialty shops. I do not sell on the Internet. Thus, you must come to my shop. I do not have a telephone either.

I am entirely self-taught. My continual formation is a combination of research, deconstruction, imitation, observation, endless trial-and-error, world travel, as well as my innate good taste. I have been self-employed for most of my life, with small artisanal storefronts. My first was in Denver in 1963, followed by over a fortyyear span of shops in Cape Cod, Costa del Sol, Aspen, but mostly San Francisco.

If you ask me to do something I have never done before, I just learn the technique. This desire to try new things is part of the joy of creating. If it is possible, you can be sure that I will find a way to do it.

I discovered Burning Man in 1986. At this time I was living in San Francisco, and I heard rumors on the street there was some kind of a party in the desert that didn’t have a name. I got together with several other friends, and we went out to it. We were told that we were supposed to bring some idea or somehow participate, so

I went to Toys “R” Us and I bought a case of electric yo-yos (they would light when you spun them) and took a seven hour-drive to Burning Man with my friends. We were the First Church of the Electric Yo-Yos. We went around yo-yo-ing at night time, giving them away. They worked out to be quite useful because at night time we could keep track of one another by watching for the yo-yo lights working. I was totally blown away with the event. I’ve been to Burning Man six other times since.

I believe this is the most spectacular art event on the planet and it is quite probably the most spectacular party in every sense of the word "party". It’s really an extraordinary, extraordinary phenomenon. I wish it well and hope to go again in the future.

My name is Franck Min, I’m fifty-two years old, and I work as an art framer in the 8 arrondissement of Paris. I started when I was fourteen, even a little before that because it was my father’s trade. He was a cabinetmaker before switching to art framing.

I did a lot of small jobs when I was younger: from mechanic to baker. Like most kids,

I had a hard time staying put. My father, who couldn’t take it anymore, took me to work with him and trained me. What he couldn’t teach me, I learned from his buddies, like bookbinding and other techniques. That’s how I became an art framer, by working with my peers.

The best way to learn is with others.

The encounters you have through your life shape you; you meet people with good ideas and others who don’t, people who help you see things differently and people who teach you better tricks.

When I was a kid I wanted to become a mechanic, but I realized it wasn’t the best job, but it did remain a passion. I like having a hobby that doesn’t pressure me.

I work on my cars when I feel like it, and I stop when I’m tired. No clients are waiting for me.

What keeps me going? Having a mortgage to pay, a kid to raise and debts. That’s what keeps me going. Passion too, of course. We all work to please others. You should see how happy my clients are when I manage to restore a painting that belonged to their grandparents or fix an old dirty drawing. That’s what gives me the motivation to come to work every morning.

My name is Juliette Trolio, I’m sixty-two years old. I’m the owner of Rix Rax, a haberdashery in Montréal.

Back in my younger days, I used to travel everywhere. In the early 1980s I met a man in Indonesia who helped me discover West Berlin. I lived there during the Cold War, from 1980 to 1985. Those were the most exciting years of my life. Graffiti art was in its early stages. I met a bunch of artists there, especially at the Endart Gallery.

The name of my shop, Rix Rax, comes from an imaginary character from a Paul Scheerbart story. I fell in love with a painting based on it and brought it back with me to Montréal in 1987.

This was when I made one of my dearest dreams come true: I opened my own shop. Initially, I wanted to open a thrift store.

I found a store for sale that had specialized in handicrafts and knitting. I immediately sold all the inventory, and while cleaning the place, I discovered sewing articles. That gave me the idea to open a haberdashery instead, a place of imagination and creativity, like the world of Rix Rax.

One thing led to another: I started to look for suppliers, travelled a lot and made a name for myself. One day, Nicole Bordeleau, a renowned author, talked about me and my name caught the attention of a European supplier. He showed up that same day with suitcases full of samples of beautiful buttons from Italy, Germany, Spain, and France.

This is how Rix Rax became the go-to place if you were looking for beautiful buttons, trimmings, lace, belt buckles, silk flowers, feathers or ribbons.

Over the years Rix Rax has become well-known in the world of fashion, costumes, hats, cinema, theatre and circus. Multidisciplinary artists and those who want to give a personalized touch to their wardrobe and their decor come here. Earlier this year, the Montréal Museum of Fine Arts honoured me alongside one hundred other women who influenced the world of fashion. I am so grateful for this recognition.

My name is “Baba” Conrad Sarr, I’m fifty-nine years old. I call myself Baba as a tribute to my Senegalese father Babacar who passed away a few years ago. My passion for shoes came from him.

I’ve been a shoeshiner for about twenty years now, but when you do something out of love, you don’t count the time and effort you put into it.

I went to college and got a senior technician certificate, then I decided to travel for a bit. Travelling made me realize that some trades weren’t recognized for their true value in France. I had an all-consuming passion for the maintenance of my shoes. As the saying goes, “A man is known by the shoes he wears,” and this is why I decided to start this salon: a unique place where I could make a living from my passion, spend some time with my friends and meet new people: Salon Baba was born.

I meet people for my own enjoyment. I like to spend time here; the atmosphere is very relaxing. We talk about everything and nothing. The most impressive thing is that we barely talk about shoes. This place is about human connections. Some of the happiest moments in my life have happened here. I meet a lot of people through my work. When you walk through the door, you become an “Average Joe,” you are not defined by your work or social rank; you are Baba’s friend, you are part of the Salon.

We’re located in a neighborhood of Paris known as the “Golden Triangle.” Traditionally, people usually go to a bar or a café for a quick break from their hectic life; others come to my Salon to relax and meet new people. Everyone who comes here is an added value to the Salon because they bring their knowledge. It’s cultural I guess.

I learn from others every day; it’s gratifying for me.

My name is Bob Libow, and I’m sixty-nine years old.

I’ve been welding and doing machine shop and automotive work since I was twelve years old. My father taught me the trade, and it’s like I’ve been retired my whole life; I really enjoy what I’m doing. Every day is different. You never know what comes through the door and you meet a lot of fascinating people. Sometimes less so, but for the most part, most everyone is good. I’m still here, but I don’t know how much longer I’ll be doing it; hopefully for quite awhile to come.

I guess I was green before this green thing came in. I’ve been riding my bicycle to work for I can’t tell you how many years. I live close by; it’s easier than driving. I don’t save a bunch of gas money, but it’s relaxing. This time of the year, from Thanksgiving to after the first of the year, is generally really slow because nobody gives welding for Christmas, you know? It gives me time to work on my own projects. I’ve got a bunch of antique cars. These are just some of them I have here I’ve got more at home and in different places. That’s kind of been my hobby my whole life, antique cars; restoring them, drag racing them, driving them. Everything. Yeah, that’s kind of what I do in a nutshell.

The building was built in 1928, and it was always a welding shop for the Venice area and the oil fields and oil wells that were around here. My parents bought the property and the building in 1966, and we opened up the shop in 1967. We’ve been here ever since, but the neighborhood has really changed around us. Abbot Kinney Boulevard used to be a quiet street, and now it’s one of the busiest streets in LA. Myself, I couldn’t afford to rent this building if we didn’t own it. We got a lot of offers from people who wanted to turn our shop into a restaurant. When I do retire I think I’ll just rent it out. I’ve got children, but they’re not really interested in getting dirty in this kind of business. So that’s what it amounts to.

My name is Mark Libow. I’m sixty-eight years old, and I’ve been working in this shop for forty-seven-plus years with my brother Bob. We purchased this property in late 1966 and moved in early 1967.

We’re here and every day is different; we get characters from around the world. We get local characters and, you know, we’ve got a lot of unique jobs that other shops may not have wanted to do or couldn’t do. We’ve done a lot of unique things.

I have a lot of stories, but I don’t think we’re about to tell some of these longer stories now. Well, I could tell one: years ago a lady called from Malibu, and she had a large estate, and she got on the phone with our father and wanted to know if we made koi catchers. Dad was an enterprising man, and he could do anything. We went up to her estate, and her assistant showed him around.

She had large ponds with very expensive koi fish in them, but they were jumping out of the water and so they’d lay there dying in the noonday sun. And so we made these beautiful stainless steel surrounds. When the koi jumped up, they would bounce back and not get hurt. So we were the West Coast koi catcher manufacturers for a while

It worked out well; everybody was happy, and we probably saved her thousands and thousands of dollars in fish flesh.

Back in the hippie days, Venice Beach was very very dangerous and the canals—formerly known as the Canal Zone—were a real kind of creepy, low-rent district with a lot of bad-boy bikers and freaked-out hippies. We were bad-boy British bikers at that time, you know, ahead of our time, and it was very colourful

As I said, we had motorcycle clubs down the alley, we had a big drug dealer next door whose name I won’t mention. We had a black gentleman who was a pimp up front, his name was Snake; he was a fascinating character, and he took care of business. As I said, the canals were not the greatest place in the world to live back then, but the rent was cheap, and there were a lot of true characters and a lot of good times. Just reminiscing a little bit about the old hippie history of Venice. Now you can catch a lot in the Venice canals for a million-plus dollars. Back then I turned down two of them with an old friend right out of high school for thirty-two thousand dollars. My buddy Freddy and I said, “What, are you crazy? Thirty-two thousand freaking dollars for a 30-by- 90-foot dirt lot.” But we did So I guess we missed out on a few million here and there but what the hell, that’s the way it goes

My brother Bob and I, we don’t have any plans to sell this property or the equipment inside or any of the other goodies that go along with it. We’re here for the long, long haul; we’ve been there a long time, and we’re not going to go anywhere. No matter how much “real estate maggots”—like Dad used to call them—offer us, we’re not going to take their offer, we’re planted. We’re true Venetians.

Welcome home! Even though I work here this place feels like a second home to me. My name is Yacek Kuzma. I turned fifty-one today. I have been working at

La Galcante since 1989. I will be celebrating my thirtieth year here next year. That’s more than half my life!

I was born in Poland on November 23, 1967. My country was still behind the Iron Curtain when my family fled to France when I was fourteen-years old.

Years later, I interrupted my law studies to come and work here.

La Galcante is not your traditional bookstore. It is a unique place founded by Christian Bailly in 1975. It specializes in old newspapers and periodicals from the French Revolution until today. Even though we refer to this place as a bookshop, we don’t really sell books here.

We’re located on a small street in the heart of Paris, a few steps away from the Louvre.

I was officially hired in 1989, after working here part-time as a student. I started at the bottom, sorting never-ending piles of newspapers and magazines from all periods, of all kinds for roughly two years Working in the basement wasn’t easy because I didn’t get to see much daylight. That’s how I learned the basics of the profession. Knowing what you’re selling and how to locate it is essential. Then

I worked my way up as a sales manager while keeping a foot in the archives and taking care of the rankings.

This allowed me to get a better understanding of the job; the requests of clients and collectors, and how to find and buy new stock, mostly through people looking to sell their collections.

They contact us, we pay them a visit and take a look at their collection. Then there is a negotiation phase obviously. You never know what you’re gonna get: you can end up with just two boxes or a ton of newspapers that you’ll need to transport, classify and store before putting them on sale. Interacting with strangers gives me the most joy, and we often become friends.

The most expensive magazine I’ve ever sold is a collection, the complete issues of a magazine called L’/llustration, dating from March 1843 to September 1944. Not so long ago I acquired a copy of the newspaper L’Aurore with Emile Zola’s ‘JAccuse...!" for a client of mine. The newspaper only has two sheets, four pages and it sells from 3,000 to 5,000 euros when in very good condition. Mine was in average condition; I did not sell it at a very high price but I sold it right away because there it was in demand.

There’s no overnight success in this business. It requires a lot of hard work. I am challenged everyday, but I love what I do It’s crazy how time flies: it’s been three decades since I first started working here.

I’m Terrence Westcott, I’m seventy-one years old, and I’m the owner of Librairie Westcott in Montréal on Boulevard Saint- Laurent.

I’ve been at this location for two years now. Before that, I was on Sainte-Catherine Street, near Montréal’s old Forum, for eighteen years. I was forced to close in 2011 so that my landlord could expand his sports bar—beer over books.

I’ve been involved in the book business since the early to mid 1970s. I started as a book scout. Buying boxes of books at garage sales and selling them to other bookstores. I always loved reading and had so many books. One day I said to myself, why not open a store? So I did. I’ve been in business ever since, and I like it.

I love book people. I have a passion for books. There are always new books coming in every day, so it’s like Christmas. It’s a lot of fun. I enjoy getting books into people’s hands. Especially if it’s something they ee i!

want and they come in, and they say, “Oh, I’ve been looking for this for five years and there it is.” They finally find it. Yes, it’s a pleasurable experience.

I think that there will always be books and people who have a passion for books. However, reading online and being able to transport thousands of books on a little electrical device is fantastic. There are a lot of communities in the world that don’t have access to bookshops. People who are travelling. It’s just very convenient

I think. At the same time, there’s room for books too. Why would one have to vanish just because something else comes on the scene? So it makes sense you know. I mean I have an extensive film collection of VHS and DVDs that I enjoy watching, but I also like going to see films, sitting in with an audience and seeing the new releases, it’s an entirely different experience. It’s like watching baseball on television, and then you go to a ballgame. I enjoy the difference in these experiences. So I think there’s always going to be bookshops around. At least I hope there will be. [/aughs] Bookstores, you know, are also a form of community centre. Many people come here to sit and browse and chat with their friends. I’ve had people come in here, men and women who have met one another and ended up getting married for heaven’s sake. Bookshops are like that. They’re casual, graceful, easy, relaxing and the community bookshop should be there. I think it’s an important thing. I read somewhere once that when a bookshop is in a community, the crime rate drops 30 percent. So I mean bookstores are essential to civilization.

My name is Jacques Léobold, but I go by “Léo.” I am ageless.

I started without a book, bare walls, bare shelves. Then I gradually filled the space. The truth is that I’m missing 500 square metres, that’s it. I am a victim of the lack of space and high rents in Paris. I opened this bookshop in 1984; it’s been a few years now.

I don’t understand why I’ve never moved out. I tried, I had another shop, but it didn’t work. I had an accident. To make it short, that’s my story. I like paper. I love books; otherwise, I would be doing something else. The logic behind my shop? There ain’t any. The ranking is in order of entry because I have no space. [laughs]

If I need to find a book, I’ll go and look for it where it is, if I have a copy left of course.

I have other projects, things I’ve been thinking about for a long time. A documentation centre on contemporary art. I specialize in art, especially the visual arts. I’ll never get bored. One must be crazy to get tired of this.

[the phone rings]

Léo died in early October 2017 after a long illness. He was seventy-six years old.

They know me as the Birdman. My age is seventy years old, and I’ve been running this store for thirteen years.

A lot of people look through the door and say, “Oh, look what’s in there, it’s a disaster.” But then a lot of their friends say, “Oh, the old man knows exactly what he has and what he doesn’t have.” If you’re not afraid to come in, you’ll probably end up buying a lot of stuff.

I don’t use a computer. I don’t use a cellular phone or anything. I’m old school. I do everything by hand. I don’t use the cash register; I do it by hand. I never know how to work the cash register anyway. I didn’t know how to work a cellular phone either. So I gave it up.

I may be old, but my mind is very sharp. People used to say I had a photographic memory for things. I was a whizzkid. I had made a lot of money by the time I was thirty-five on the stock market, in investment banking, and then

I called it quits. And I got involved when I was fifty-seven again, and I’m still kicking.

I tell them what I think is good. I say, “Not everybody likes the same thing, but I think you’ll like it.” Certain people, if I know that they don’t have much money, I’ll give them a discount or something; what fits their pocket book.

We talk about different things: the stock market, antiques, movies, that’s what they like. If you handle the customers the right way, they’ll come back again.

This store when we opened up, it was very crowded, and a lot of people were coming. But over the years not many people were buying music like before. A lot of people they just want one song or something, they’ll buy it on the Internet for a dollar or something. There were plenty of days I got a hundred people, a hundred and fifty people a day. And then little by little it went down and down. Now you’re lucky if you get twenty, thirty people on certain days. Nothing happens.

Money is very tight now. Food prices are going up and everything. Peanut butter just went up 40 percent; milk’s going up, juice is going up. Con Edison goes up and everything. Even the price of cotton is going up, and is forcing the price of a lot of garments higher this year than last year. A lot of my customers lost their jobs on Wall Street; now they’re bringing in CDs to sell just to survive. I see loads of people unemployed and everything. It’s unbelievable,

I never saw anything like it.

I never saw empty stores all over the place. Every block on the side streets you have empty stores. There was a video store on the next block; it became a Subway. It’s better when you have more stores around because it brings more people to the neighborhood when they know there’s a whole batch of music stores, they’re all doing bad. I don’t want to mention any names. There’s one that’s closing on St. Marks, there’s another one that’s only open a few days on St. Marks.

They’ll be the last ones in St. Marks. I used to sit over there with the punk haircuts and the metal, and I don’t see as many anymore ‘cause the area change in St. Marks. It’s mostly sushi and yogurt places there. Who’s going to buy all that yogurt?

On 14th street I see Duane Reade. Every block is a Duane Reade. Wherever you go, it’s Subways, Starbucks, Dunkin’ Donuts and everything. They don’t bring anything to the neighborhood. When I grew up you had the barber shops and the little delis; they all knew you and everything.

You used to be able to charge your stuff then you paid at the end of the week or something. You can’t do things like that anymore ‘cause most people wouldn’t pay you back. I like this store, I like the music. I don’t need the money, but I like to work. I have a lot of stuff; it doesn’t make any difference if I sell it or I don’t sell it. Eventually, I’ll have to get rid of it. I’m gonna throw it out in the end, a lot of stuff. This is not really an asset of mine, it’s just stuff. I’m old already, who knows how long I’ll be around. I can be around ten years, I can be around fifteen years, I can be dead in three years. I’m hoping to be around a long time yet. But in life, you never know.

Rainbow Music closed permanently on September 30, 2015.

My name is Robert Perry, I’m fifty-four years old, and I live in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The place is Tattooed Mom, and we’ve been here for twenty years next year. This place is not me, this place is everybody’s who comes here and leaves a little piece of themselves here in some beautiful way. And it changes every day and every night, and that’s what makes it just my absolute passion It’s evolved over the years in interesting ways. So many different communities come here to gather, to meet and challenge each other, exchange ideas, and to create together. Whether they be visual artists, or writers, or filmmakers, or politicians, or moms or kids, or anything that you can think of; every community has been here and has enjoyed the space and has left their mark here. That’s amazing to me.

My dream for this place is to just keep it going and keep going for another twenty years and another twenty years and another twenty. To have this be a real heart of a community for people where they can come and they can express themselves, and they can find their communities and enjoy each other and enjoy each other’s company in a nice, inviting, safe space.

The biggest compliment that anybody could ever tell me about Tattooed Mom or about their time here is that they feel at home. That’s how I know that my work is done, that I did a good job. That is my dream, to keep that going.

I have people come in, and they say, “Oh wow, this place is so cool!” A place like this could never exist anymore in— fill in the blank—New York or London or Paris or wherever you’re talking about. It’s not possible anymore for a place like this to be around

So my concern is maybe that it isn’t possible at some point, and perhaps the change that is happening in lots of places is happening in this city too, and will cut short our lives here in some small way. The encroaching condominiums, chains and speculative realtors will force somebody like us out of this space, but you know this space, even if we aren’t around in twenty or forty or sixty years, will live on in many people’s hearts, memories and photographs, and their own art will continue to keep going.

I was born in Hawaii. I lived there till I was seventeen.

I went to school in Boston, travelled a lot on the East Coast and all across America, landed in California and went back to Hawaii and travelled in Europe and went to all different kinds of places and eventually ended up in Philadelphia because I had a friend here. It looked like a cheap, cool, scary place to live. It was easy to live on very little here, and that made it fun as a young artist to be in that kind of a city. There were lots of us doing that, whether you were making music or making art

I was working as a graphic designer at one point, as an art director at a small book publisher. We used to go up to this bar, and I became friends with the owner who asked me to do graphic design work for him and then to help him produce nights and then to deejay and do all this other stuff. One thing led to another, and one of the bartenders there was opening a place with him called Sugar Mom’s in another neighborhood up in the old city. They invited me and said, ‘Just quit your job and come start this place with us,” and I said, “I don’t have any money,’ and they said, “You don’t have to worry about that, just quit your job and it’s going to be fine.” So I was ready to do that, and I did. And there was no turning back, so I just helped them with the visuals of the space, lots of fun details.

So I started Sugar Mom’s with them and then one of the partners at Sugar Mom’s said, “I want to start a place down in our neighborhood, South Street. Would you like to come with me and do that?” And I said sure. So we started Tattooed Mom. Everybody knew her as “mom”, she was tattooed and looked out for travelling bands and other travellers. She was just a mom to a lot of people, so we started this place.

The upstairs was not quite as filled with the beauty that you see now. But we’d lived and hung out in places like this that were squats and band houses. So it was just natural for our friends to show up and start doing things like this. And I guess that word kind of spread, so people who were doing sticker art, graffiti and wheat paste and everything else also showed up and started adding to the walls and it just kind of hasn’t stopped since then. It’s beautiful to see people from all over the world now appreciate it. And people who, through things like Instagram, people from all over the world might see things that are happening here and say, “Oh when I come to Philly,

I need to stop by Tattooed Mom and check it out or add my art to it.”

Andit’s nice to see artists from all over the world who travel stopping by. But it’s not just artists; it could be skateboarders, bicycle messengers from Prague—I had like eleven sleeping on my floor once because they were all here for a big race. You know things like that make it super fun to be here. It’s ahome to a lot of people, and if people feel like that, they feel comfortable here and feel at home and feel that they can express themselves here that is really the highest compliment.

My name is Jose Urena. I came to this country in 1973 from Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

When I arrived, I started washing dishes in arestaurant, then I went to school and learned a little bit of English. I was working all the time. I started here in 1977. So it’s been almost forty years. Life is tough, very tough. The American Dream is not easy to get, you need to work hard for it. In my country, it’s not easy, but you need to work half for it. If you do what you’re supposed to be doing, doing the right thing, you know, not being a crook, you are gonna get it, sooner or later.

I made two big mistakes in my life: the first one was not to buy this building when I had the opportunity.

Back in 1986, the owners were selling this building for eighty thousand dollars.

The guy told me to give him five thousand dollars downpayment to make the papers. I was young, I told him I didn’t need to own a building, I’d rather enjoy life instead. You see today I feel like knocking my head off because this building is worth at least ten million dollars. I don’t wanna think about it. [laughs]

The second time was when I went to the Dominican Republic in 1987, and somebody offered me a big piece of land, about five hundred acres. That was a beautiful piece of land for maybe thirty-three thousand pesos (approximately three thousand dollars back then). Today the land is worth something around twenty-five million dollars. That’s life, you know. I regret these decisions with all my heart. [laughs] This is unbelievable.

My name is Mr Vu Dinh An. I was born in Vietnam on August 26, 1939. I left when

I was fourteen years old and came to Paris to study. I graduated from Sup de Coin 1970 and got involved in the photo world in

I have been the owner of Photo Ciné Gobelins in Paris since 1978. I sell, buy and repair all kinds of items related to photography: cameras, lenses, filters and flashes. My shop is not really accessible to customers. It’s easier if a client tells me what they’re looking for and how much they want to spend. I am a lazy man; you can tell by the apparent anarchy in my shop. I’d rather have a messy shop that dissuades burglars from stealing from me than a proper organized one. The most valuable items are carefully hidden, and if anyone else touches them, they will end up buried under a pile of photo equipment. This mess doesn’t mean I’m not competent.

I do business based on three things: price, availability and competence. If you’re missing one of these three, you are not a good seller.

There are better days than others, but in the end, I get by.

I offer a six-month warranty on each purchase. It is essential for me to provide a quality service to my clients.

There’s a Vietnamese saying that goes like this: “When one knows a trade well, one will be honoured and nurtured by the trade.” What others do, I can do it. What I do, no one can do it.

On August 15, 2018, just a few days before his seventy-ninth birthday, Vu Dinh An passed away from a major stroke while on the beach at Cap d’Agde in the south of France while vacationing with his family for the first time in years

Hello, my name is Joseph Hovsepian. I left Greece in 1960, after serving in the Royal Greek Air Force, and came to Montréal. I worked for Canadair for a couple of years, and then I started Radio Hovsep Company. I have had it for almost fifty-three years. At the same time, I’m a volunteer pastor at a Baptist church in Outremont. I do both, and I enjoy it.

This store has become an antiques shop. People come from all the cities, and even provinces, to take pictures. Movies have rented my space and the stuff I have. You may also see some of the things I have in movies. Seeing that is a pleasure for me

In my store I have things that are actually of great value. Tubes, receiving tubes that people can’t find anywhere, and I sell tubes or ship them to outside the country or the province. I have parts and accessories. I have old radios that go back to the 1920s and 1930s, and people still bring me their radios to fix. They keep saying that this belonged to my great-grandfather or grandmother. The problem there is today, people don’t even recognize them. Sometimes someone will come and say, you know sir I went to a store and showed them the radio, and they thought it was a toaster. They don’t understand that radios in those days had lights inside and would get hot and they would be surprised that I know how to fix them. I know how to fix them because I’ve been doing it for more than fifty-five years here. And for me, it’s not only a pleasure, but it’s something that comes with experience.

You cannot buy experience, you cannot find it anywhere, except by practising. So I’ve been doing this day and night. Well not night but during the day. And it gives me pleasure. So if anyone would ask me would you ever give this up? Well, I’d tell them I will give it up when God takes my life away. I like it.

I’m seventy-five years old, and I get pleasure from dealing with customers, repairs and also of course as a pastor dealing with the public, counselling and helping people, young people with drug addictions and alcohol problems. I help them as much as I can. I travel to mission fields. I’ve had already made five mission trips to help poor people and build their churches and provide medication and things like that. People don’t understand why I do all this, but I do it because God has given me a life and I want to enjoy my life. And the store is a place where I can live my life and help others to live their lives to the fullest.

I hope I’ll be able to continue a little more. And I hope this will be of some help to those who listen to it.

What really makes me very pleased or excited is when someone brings me an old radio from 1920 or 1930 and mice have chewed the wiring and mice are trapped inside, and everything is bad, and my wife says, “What is this garbage? What are you going to do with that?” So I work on it for a couple of days. When the customer comes and sees the radio working, they start jumping and laughing and is so pleased, shaking my hand. That’s the greatest pleasure I get out of my business: making people happy when they bring me broken down things and I fixthem. I’ve had failures in life. But I believe the good days are many too, and there are many stories. One day they called me, and they said your store is on fire. And I came here with my wife and the store was burning down. I went across the street and looked at it and was very very discouraged. When the minister came from the church and said, ‘Joseph, what’s happening?” I said, “Well,

God gave it to me. God is taking it away.” But little did I know that God would also help me to rebuild and now! am here for many years, and I’ve been blessed, and everyone knows us here.

To go back into my history, I remember one day when I was about fifteen or sixteen years old my father told me, “Son, I want to talk to you.” I thought he was going to talk to me about girls and sex, so I was excited. I went in, and he said, “Sit down son. I want you to be a pastor, a reverend of a church and not see you work in electronics:

If you want to become a minister of a church, I will work two jobs, and I’ll provide money for your schooling. But if you don’t want to become a minister and you decide to be an electronics engineer instead, then I will only pray for you.” To which I replied, “Dad, you know I love electronics. Pray for me, I don’t want to become a minister.” But, you know, thirty years later I managed to do both and this made him really happy.

My name is Juan Menares Henriquez, I’m fifty-eight years old, and I’m the owner of Garage Henriquez in Pointe- Saint-Charles, a district in the south-east of Montréal

I’m a passionate collector, and my garage doesn’t have anything to envy to Ali Baba’s cave. Nearly one-hundred and eighty thousand objects can be found here. I started my collection when I was ten years old in Chile. My family and I came to Montréal in 1987, and I brought some of my objects with me. I opened my garage about twenty-five years ago, following my father and grandfather’s footsteps. All kind of objects can be found in every corner of the garage, from the staircase to my office: gramophones, gas masks from the two world wars, typewriters, handguns, a crossbow from 1748, Nazi passports, one of the very first television sets, ventriloquist dolls, etc

My garage and my customers remain my main focus and priority even though my collection occupies most of the physical space. Being surrounded by all these objects makes me happy.

This passion was passed to me by my grandmother, an antiques lover. I was her only grandson, and she would often offer me old books or records. This led me to start hunting old objects and start my own collection.

When I’m gone, my collection will go to my son and my daughter. I refuse to sell anything.

I’m Curtis Anthony, fifty-seven years old, from Philadelphia. I’ve been in the bike business since 1982. I opened Via Bicycles thirty-four years ago with a five thousand dollar loan from my mother, backed by an antique bed for collateral.

I’m blessed. I love what I do. We treat people like we want them to come back. The people who work here, we demand that they treat people fairly and honestly and most people we do want to see again. A small percentage we hope never return but the bulk of people we want to come back! This is our third location. We focus on vintage bicycles. Something that I really like is people who have worked here like it because most of our customers see their bikes as tools rather than toys. So we really do provide a service for the community, which makes me feel good. Upstairs, we store vintage bikes that we’ve collected through the years. Sometimes, because I’m a crappy businessman we have to sell nice bikes from our collection to keep the doors open and the lights on. Over the years, we’ve had the pleasure of working on some really nice bikes, and we’ve met a variety of very very interesting people. Our bikes range from the 1880s up until the present. We work on just about anything; if there’s something we can’t handle, we’ll recommend who can do it for you.

I would like to see our business continue when I decide to retire. It’s tough finding people that really care and want it to go on, ‘cause sometimes it’s not about the money, it’s about what we do for people and keeping the shop afloat.

Hello hello, I am Henri Launay, and I’m ninety-one years old. I ama doll doctor. I have been giving them a second life for over fifty years.

When I opened my shop in 1964, I used to repair leather goods and umbrellas. Back then, umbrella repairmen also fixed dolls. Coming from a family of four boys, I did not know anything about dolls.

I looked into it, and I contacted the dollmakers who supplied me with spare parts. I currently have a unique stock of spare parts that allows me to do all kind of repairs: I put back the eyes; I have wigs made of natural hair, small shoes. It’s a very delicate and exciting job.

I deal with both collectible and very ordinary dolls that people hold on to because of their sentimental value. Back in the day, money was tight in most families, a doll was a very precious thing to have, and the children played with theirs forever.

People bring me their worn-out dolls so I can restore them. They care about them a lot, and they’ve been passing on them from generation to generation.

I have a physical need to come to my shop every day. It’s my universe. I am often asked who will take over when I decide to retire, I do not intend to stop, thank you very much!

My nameis Philipp SchUnemann, I call myself Uncle Philipp, I’m forty-nine years old, and I’m the founder and owner of Uncle Philipp’s Toy Workshop, a very special toy shop in Berlin that I opened in 1997. There has always been a very strong ecomentality in our family. I studied civil engineering. After a few years working on developing sewage treatment plants, I decided to be independent and open an ecoconscious toy shop. That’s how I started Onkel Philipp’s Toy Workshop. My motto was “Rental. Repair. Adoption. Sale.”

The first five years were pretty tough, but now we’re doing well.

I offer a large variety of second-hand toys found in flea markets or purchased from visitors and customers. I carefully clean and fix the toys before offering them for sale in my store. I like to think of myself as a saviour of old toys, and my shop is a rescue centre for teddy bears and dolls. You can find all kind of toys from teddy bears to cars through dolls and traditional German toys like these tin toys wind-up crocodiles called Blech Krokodile as well as Trabi cars and toys from the German Democratic Republic era that I display in a toy museum in the basement.

Hello, my name is Carmelle Gagné, I was born on October 31, 1958. It seems my career was predestined, being born on Halloween. [laughs] I arrived at Joseph Ponton Costumes in 1987 after having spent years creating costumes for theatre groups. Joseph Ponton was a barber living in Montréal in the nineteenth century. He was a theatre enthusiast and spent a lot of time surrounded by people in the industry. Unfortunately, it was not an easy career, and many amongst them were unable to support themselves like this French theatre troupe that failed in finding success and resigned itself to returning to France. In order to pay for their boat tickets, it had to sell their stock composed of hundreds of costumes. Joseph Ponton bought it and stored the costumes in the back shop of his boutique located on the corner of Saint-Laurent Boulevard and Sainte-Catherine Street. He gave up his job as a barber in 1865 and began supplying the theatres of Montréal.

After his death, the company went through three different owners and settles in 1985 in a magnificent four-storey building in Old Montréal, housing close to 15,000 unique handsewn costumes and mascots.

I began here as a costume consultant and stylist. I was also sewing at the time.

I sometimes happen to make people happy. I was recently visited by a couple who had decided to remarry after fifty-five years. They had commissioned a set of Titanic and requested to be dressed as a woman of high society and a ship captain. Their night was so successful that my client pulled me into her arms and embraced me. She showed me photos of the night and seemed to be floating on her own little cloud. It made me very happy to see that.

When our building in Old Montréal changed owners in 2014, I became associated with Dominique Brossard, one of the owners of the shop to help save it. We reopened in a smaller location, but just as impressive, in the East of the city.

I do this job because I want to transmit my passion to the next generation and keep this landmark alive as long as possible. It’s been around for 155 years, and we are most certainly the last ones in this field, in Québec at least.

My name is Dominique Perrazino, but everyone calls me Ménick. I am seventy-eight years old. I had no desire to work on construction sites like most young people of my age so, on my father’s advice, I opened my barbershop at the age of eighteen.

My first boss was an Italian. I was fifteen years old. I went to barber school from 1955 to 1956. At that time, you had to work for three years in a hair salon before you could practice. I opened Chez Ménick in 1959. In May, the shop will celebrate its sixtieth anniversary.

I come here every morning at 7:15 or 7:30 and I drink my coffee. When the first customers arrive, I welcome them; very often people have not had their coffee yet, so I offer them one. My barbershop is a friendly, family place. Regulars mix with new customers. The neighborhood barbershop has always been a meeting place. I exclusively employ female hairdressers. All clients, regulars or first-timers, are on an equal footing. I leave at 5:30 p.m. The decoration of the salon came naturally. When I was younger, I used to play hockey and baseball, but I was less talented than my friends. I soon became known as the sports barber. I liked the nickname, and I decided to keep it. The floor of my barbershop is reminiscent of an ice rink and the walls are filled with photographs of the best moments of my career and some famous athletes like

Guy Lafleur, Pierre Bouchard and Yvon Lambert, to only name a few. Hulk Hogan used to swing by the shop every time he was in town. When I decide to close shop, all the memorabilia will go to the City of Montréal archives. It’s a great honour, I must admit.

My name is Denise Acabo, I am eighty-two years old, and I am the owner of the chocolate factory A I’Etoile d’Or in Paris.

I was born on August 22, 1936, in Tunis. My mother, a well-known Italian cook from Piedmont, put me in a boarding school at the age of three with the Franciscan Sisters in Carthage. My sister, who was seven years older than me, took me out of there when I was fifteen

I left Tunisia during the events that led to its independence, and I moved to Bordeaux. I worked for Papeteries de France. My mother had remarried a man from Gascony, and I spent all my weekends at their home not far from Bordeaux.

A few years later, I got married and had my two children Bored of being a stay-at-home mom I took over a delicatessen in Colombes, a suburb of Paris. After three years of working there, I started to get bored again. My clientele was always the same and my days were not the most exciting.

One day, on my way to taking my daughter to the doctor, I discovered this shop that dated back to 1903, and I fell in love with it and wanted to make it mine. I made an offer to the owner. He declined. Every time I was in the neighborhood, I tried to convince him to sell me his chocolate factory. He finally accepted my offer, and I became the owner of Al’Etoile d’Or in 1973.

I travelled all over France in search of the best chocolate artisans in the country. I took the train to Dijon, Biarritz, Lyon, and I spent my days tasting the chocolates of the most famous chocolatiers.

This is how I met Maurice Bernachon, French master chocolatier, founder of the dynasty and Maison Bernachon in Lyon. I came to see him every Monday to convince him to let me sell his products in Paris. He was hard-headed, and he kept refusing, but I don’t let go easily. I became the exclusive retailer of Bernachon’s chocolate bars in Paris. Mr. Bernachon used to tell journalists that he could not stand me anymore. [/aughs] I’m stubborn. When I want something, I do not give up. I am a pugnacious lion.

I don’t take no for an answer.

My shop offers nearly a hundred confectionery and organic chocolates from French chocolate artisans such as Bonnat, Bochard, and Bernachon, of course. My clients come from all over the world. I have a lot of customers from Japan, so I hired a Japanese lady to help me in the shop.

I am often asked why I dress the way I do. It’s very simple, I hate being locked up. Back in my boarding school, I was head of the French Scouts until the age of twenty-one.

So I decided to keep the kilt. I have five different ones from Burberry. I gained some weight from trying chocolate all day, and I do not fit in four of them. I spend ten and a half hours a day in my shop, therefore I need to be comfortable in my clothes.

On February 14, 2014, on Valentine’s Day, my chocolate factory shattered due to a gas explosion in the basement. I was profoundly shocked and had to close my shop.

It was very hard. I was heartbroken. I went into a deep depression, and I lost the joy of living. I received support and love from all over the world. It definitely helped me a lot.

My shop finally reopened on November 3, 2015. I was ecstatic to return to my clients and my confectioneries.

I’m feeling great, and I’m having the time of my life.

Hello, my name is Daniel Cété, I am sixtyfive years old, and I am the owner of Ameublement Elvis, a liquidation centre where I sell new and used appliances.

I consider myself lucky to be in good health. I love what I do, I love life, and every morning since 1979, I can’t wait to get to my shop. Back then, I was a field service technician;

I was repairing home appliances. I found this place to rent and decided to open my shop. At first, I thought of calling it “Ameublement Daniel” but went with Elvis instead. Of course, there was an immediate response; people were surprised and curious to know what I was selling Ameublement Elvis allowed me to support three beautiful children who have given me seven grandchildren.

I was married three times. The first time, when I was seventeen. I always loved a good party to the point that if the opportunity arose, I would remarry in a heartbeat. [laughs]

I pretended to be a deaf-mute wrestler in the United States. My stage name was Gorman Perdy. I didn’t speak a word of English and knew some sign language. As you can see, my life was far from being boring. [/aughs]

I ended up doing business with Cuba after mishaps in the Dominican Republic. I sold a little of everything: refrigerators, stoves, car parts, clothes, buses, planes and lots of other stuff. I had an amicable relationship with the Castro family, to the point of being invited to the first anniversary of Fidel Castro’s death.

When I was young, after Sunday Mass, we gathered under the church steps to chat with people. That’s why I had a church bench set up in front of my shop: people come, we sit, and talk about everything and nothing.

Every August 16, for about ten years, I or ganized a concert to mark the anniversary of Elvis’s death. At the time, there was a gas station at the corner of my shop. I had a stage built with helium balloons, and I hired twenty-five musicians, six background singers and “Elvis” would arrive in a police car. It was absolutely fabulous

Over the years, I have received hundreds of objects, sculptures, photos, paintings and concert tickets related to Elvis. I will give everything to one of my granddaughters who is a massive Elvis fan. Go figure. [laughs]

My business will permanently close when I decide to stop. I will not sell it. Neither my children nor my grandchildren will want to take over the reins. Until then, the show must go on.

My name is Jean-Bernard Marty. I’m sixtyone years old, make it sixty-two. I was asked to explain why and how I ended up here.

It’s a tricky question because I wasn’t predestined to do this at all. It started with me dropping out of school when I heard music for the very first time. I was around sixteen years old. I had a great bachelor’s degree that was probably worth a lot more than it is now.

I started working in nightclubs after trying to figure out what it felt like to be a law student. I quickly got the picture and quit right away. [laughs]

It was a nice and fun era that led me to have ason who I still love with all my heart but who wasn’t planned in my life story. Becoming a father forced me to get a more stable job; that’s how I ended up working in the family business: an old knife shop founded by my grandfather.

Everyone in our family has worked here at some point because they had no other choice. I thought my life would be different. The joke’s on me. Fifty years later, I’m still doing the same thing. People ask me if there’s a future in all this, but I really can’t say for sure whether this knifemaking business is still sustainable or not. That’s actually a good question. That’s why I decided to look if someone would be interested in taking over, but since I do not have much sense of tomorrow, I never got an answer to this question. I am satisfied with my current situation. If somebody wants to buy me out, it’ll be a very complicated decision to make. [laughs]

My name is Philip Mortillaro, I’m sixty-five years old, I’ve been a locksmith since 1964. I started doing this when I was fourteen years old, as an apprentice.

The shop here is Greenwich Locksmiths. I opened this up in April 1980, and it’s the smallest freestanding building in New York. My shop is my life. I love my shop, and I think when you look at the building you can tell. I like to make metal sculptures, so I made metal sculptures for my shop out of keys: I made a chair out of keys, I made a clock out of keys, and everything is “keys.” There are so many metaphors to keys: keys to success, keys to happiness, and everybody is looking for that key. I like to take the harder jobs: making parts for locks that don’t exist anymore, safes, picking locks. I make thousands of keys a week

I charge four dollars for a key that will last more than twenty years; that’s a good investment. People pay for quality and service. I’m a good locksmith.

Years ago, when I first opened here, this shop was normal, this was how NYC was, there were lots of little shops across the street from me. There was a place called Casey’s Rubber Stamps: it was this guy from Dublin who opened up a shop just to make rubber stamps; you could make your name, you could make whatever you wanted, that’s all he sold; and up the block, there was another guy who would just take pictures of streets in NYC, of people, of whatever, and he would put them in a frame and sell those. This is how business used to be.

Years ago I would go to a café, I knew the owner, now you go to Starbucks. When you wanna go to a hardware store, you go to Home Depot. When you wanna go to a bookstore, you go to Barnes & Noble. So this is the way the world is now, the world is shot; NYC is not really NYC anymore. NYC reminds me of a gift shop in an airport you go on Bleeker Street now, and it’s all these Marc Jacobs, Ralph Lauren, and everything else I don’t even know anymore. Before there used to be a lot of old antiques shops over there and they would give me some business, they would bring an old lock for me to fix it, now it’s different. But now I’m an old man, so it’s okay. I own the building, have no mortgage and a lot of expenses. Everything is paid for.

My son works with me and in the beginning I didn’t think he was gonna go into this with me ‘cause he went to college and everything; I thought he was gonna do something else. But now he loves it, he’s twenty-nine years old, all of a sudden he thinks about this kind of business all the time, and he does lots of IT stuff, so he’s gonna be dealing with all the electronic locks, which I don’t do. As long as I’m around I’ll be doing the old-fashioned stuff.

My name is Esther Fisher, I’m ninety years old and I’m the owner and manager of H. Fisher & Sons, an old-fashioned shop specializing in tailoring and sewing supplies that my late husband’s father opened in 1918, after emigrating from Austria.

The way my store is, up until now there were about six or seven like that in Montréal. As the older generation were gonna pass on, and wanted to leave them to their children, none of the children wanted to take over. It wasn’t, as we say in English, their cup of tea. They want the modern, the glamour. They don’t want this. There’s more money to be made in these types of stores than there is in the hotshot professions.

And even I myself have no one to leave it to, because about twenty-five years ago when these type of businesses were booming, I have three children, my two sons wanted to come into the store, and my husband wanted them, and I said they can come in, but after they got a degree in the college. They could get any degree they wanted, I didn’t care, but they had to have a degree to fall back on; you never know.

They went to school, they got their degrees. They went into their professions. And then when my husband died—I was never in the store before—I said to them, “Anybody who wants the store can have it.” They’d just have to pay their siblings out. I didn’t want two or three children owning, it because children fight. So all three in unison said, “You made us go to school for thirty years. Now you want us to take the business. No no no no no. You stay with it.” So I took over. It was very, very difficult the first year because I knew nothing, and I had to downsize it because my husband had salesmen across Canada, from the Maritimes to Vancouver, and they were putting in orders, and I didn’t know what the orders even were. So they were all yelling at me and screaming, “Where are my orders,”

and this and that, and I said I can’t do it. So I told all of them, I’m sorry it’s going to become a cash and carry business. I cannot do it. I don’t know enough.

So then they all said, “We’ll help you, we’ll help you,” because they were losing the commission. But I couldn’t, so I cut it right away in half. And as the years went by, I learned through trial and error, but I got there. Now twenty-five years later I’m very very comfortable, I’m very very content.

I have no intention of selling it, but when I go, I’m chugging to the finishing line, they’re going to have to close the door, my children.

So I’m sitting here alone now, and it gives me a purpose.

I get up in the morning, and I come here. I have something to do. Most of my friends my age, they get up in the morning, and they say, “Well what am I going to do today?” They have to look for things to do. I don’t have to look! I gotta come down to the store! I come down to the store, and I meet people, I talk to people, I take orders, and I enjoy it very very much. So as long as I able physically, mentally, that’s what it’s gonna be. [phone rings] Now I have to take the phone. [into the receiver] “Good afternoon, Fisher.”

My name is Frank Savazzi, I’m eighty-two years old. I came from Milan sixty-five years ago, in 1951. I was seventeen years old. At first it was very hard for me because I didn’t understand English very much and I thought people spoke more French than English.

I started being a tailor at a very young age: when I was nine, I would go to school in the morning, and my mother would send me to spend the rest of the day learning the skills of the tailoring trade, because she didn’t want me to hang out in the street and get myself into trouble.

If I had a penny for every stitch I have made, I would be a millionaire. [laughs]

I love very much the trade that I learned in the centre of Milan, the capital of fashion, among very very good tailors.

When I came to Canada, I came by myself, then after three months, my wife followed me with our three young children. She spoke French, English, Italian and German.

She helped me with my French and made things more comfortable for me. When my wife passed away, I raised our three children by myself and remarried after they were all married. I’ve been with my second wife, Connie, for twenty-six years now.

Back then I used to make a lot of suits, twenty-five, thirty suits a week for the Hudson’s Bay.

Now I’m older, so I decided to slow it down, but I still make suits once in a while, because I love my work very much.

Nobody wants to learn anymore. Learning a trade demands a lot of time, patience. Nowadays, people want to make money right away because they want to have a car, a better life. They don’t learn like we did, with some kicks in the backside sometime; we learned the hard way. We know to do everything: from the vest to the jacket, to the coat. Not like now where people are chain workers: someone does a pocket, someone else does the sleeve, etc., and it’s a different kind of work.

I don’t like it when people follow like sheep. Create your own style and be yourself for what you are and don’t follow everybody else.

I love everything about Canada: from the Native peoples, the Royal Mountain Police and the mountains of British Columbia and I’m very grateful for the life I was able to live here. My place is like a museum, filled with objects and memories collected through the years: paintings and sculptures from and inspired by the Native people. Unfortunately, I know that I’m gonna have to close shop one day.

My nameis Harold Paul, I’m eighty-seven years old. I am the owner of Paul and Sons and I work six days a week. This is my livelihood. With my wife, I run the business now that was started by my parents in 1919. Our children are not in it. Our grandchildren are not in it. We’re just in it ourselves and we still enjoy what we do. We get along very well. We manufacture draperies, we have our workrooms here, we do the styling, we have the installation people. Our work is not only confined to homes: we do commercial work, we do movie work, we do work on ships, on cruisers, everything, as long as it hangs we will make it. You’re welcome to come and visit us any time you like.

Sylvia and I are both getting up in years, and we think maybe perhaps we should try and not work, and just confine ourselves to each other as we have been. We had an anniversary last Monday which was a leap year. It was the seventeenth anniversary of our marriage, which if it were not the twenty-ninth of the month, it would have been sixty-eight years that we’ve been happily married and I hope we are both well enough to keep our happiness going.

My name is Charles Neri, I’m eighty-one years old. I have this shop in Philadelphia that has been here for forty years. I hope the shop will be here another forty even though I won’t. I hope my daughter Cindy will run it after I’m gone.

I just happen to like the antiques. I love to be around beautiful things, listen to good music; it keeps me alive.

I opened this store in 1976. I was in another business for twenty-five years and just got tired of it and didn’t know what to do. I wasn’t educated for anything, and I knew I liked antiques, so I bought this building and opened up an antiques shop. Gave up half of my other work; I would go to my other work in the morning, come here in the afternoons until I saw after four or five years that I could make a living doing this, then I gave up all my other work, and that was my retirement.

I’ve been here for forty years now and I can’t wait to get here every day.

My name is Mario Antonio Hernandez Escamilla; people call me Don Mario. I’m a seventy-two-year-old sculptor:

I restore and create Catholic art. I started when I was fourteen. My workshop has been at this location since 1944. My father studied at the Academy of San Carlos; he taught me everything: anatomy, drawing, sculpture, carving My great-great-grandfather Margarito Hernandez was the first sculptor in our family. Two hundred and four years later, I am the twelfth sculptor of this dynasty and unfortunately the last one.

The Church was one of my most important clients, but it doesn’t send me business anymore. It’s more interested in politics. It has abandoned its parishioners. Everything is made in China nowadays. It’s cheaper.

I work every day to survive. My biggest wish was to train an apprentice, but unfortunately, no one is interested. If people don’t care, why should I? I may sound selfish, but that’s the sad truth. In a way, this is going to be my revenge. I am going to take all of this knowledge to my grave.

My nameis Pierre Guillebeaud, I am sixty-seven years old, and I’ve been a blacksmith for more than fifty years.

I started as an apprentice when I was fifteen years old with a craftsman specializing in balustrades. I also studied design for three years at fine arts school, to learn to draw and achieve perfection. I’ve been doing this job ever since, and I love it.

I work in churches and castles, and I am a consultant for interior decoration. I work a lot with architects: I make them grills, balustrades. I also do a lot of restoration.

In the 1960s there were ten art forges in Bordeaux. The only one left is mine. I opened it thirty-two years ago, in this neighborhood called Les Chartrons.

My son Charly has inherited my passion for the trade. He has been working with me for about ten years in parallel with his studies. He started at a very young age, and he loves it. Charly will take over the workshop when I decide to retire. My wife Francoise and our son Adrien also help us. Atelier Fer Emeraude is a family affair.

My name is Mehmet Oztekin, I go by “Gramofon Baba” [father of gramophones], I’m seventy-seven years old

My shop is located in Istanbul’s historic Grand Bazaar.

I am Istanbul’s last gramophone repairman.

I’ve dedicated my entire life to gramophones. I learned the trade with my father when I was seven, by helping him in his workshop. Back then, gramophones were very precious; I was not even allowed to touch them, only assist him with the tools. My father inherited his passion from his father.

I miss the old days where an apprentice would learn from a master. The transmission of knowledge is essential to keep a trade alive.

The oldest gramophone I own was made in 1905. I have produced more than nine thousand gramophones in the past forty-five years. Most of them were sent to different countries around the world.

Turkey was the only country where gramophones were repaired in the 1980s, and I have trained many masters, but they became unemployed over time because interest in the instrument waned and people would get rid of their gramophones. I have trained gramophone collectors as well. As a result, more people have started listening to gramophones again and looking for them on the Internet and in flea markets.

I divide my gramophones into three categories: the ones I have repaired, the ones I designed and the antique gramophones.

I repair gramophones for people to play them; I don’t like when people do not use them. I see my work as a kind of cultural preservation. Gramophones should be protected for future generations. My dream is to establish a gramophone museum in Turkey.

My name is Edwige Charey, and I am sixty-six years old My original name is not Charey. My grandfather, a Polish Jew, came to France at the beginning of the last century. When he declared his name, Szare, with the pronunciation of a Polish Jew, the person behind the counter understood “charé,” and wrote “Charey.” It was under this name that my father was born in 1908.

Life was hard in Paris for my grandparents, so they decided to return to Poland, to their small village near Warsaw. When the Second World War started, my grandparents chose to keep the name of Charey hoping it would save them. Unfortunately, it didn’t

After the war, my father, who was a prisoner of the Germans for five years, did not know where to go. He returned to France, taking advantage of the fact that he was a French citizen

He tried to find some family members at the Hotel Lutetia, where all the Polish Jewish deportees used to meet. After a few months, he realized that nobody would come back, and he settled permanently in Paris’s 13" arrondissement.

He worked all his life as a tailor and married a French woman. Following this marriage, my sister was born in 1949, and me in 1952. I have never been to Poland for fear of not being able to recover. My father went back, but unfortunately, nothing was there anymore.

I wanted to become a great artist, and I met a student at the Beaux-Arts who introduced me to art, literature and the press. He’s the one who showed me La Galcante, where I worked for twelve years.

In 1993, I took over Les Archives de la Presse, a specialist bookshop selling all kinds of magazines: old, recent, fashion, cinema and sports.

We closed the bookstore in July 2013. My boss, Mr. Jacques Laurent, wasn’t able to find a buyer, so he decided to call it quits. My biggest wish was to be able to train someone and pass on the knowledge that I acquired over the years. I find it hard not to be able to pass the torch.

A very cold art gallery took the place of my shop. I enjoyed meeting new people and being the confidante of some of my clients. In front of my desk, I had a chair, and many people sat in front of me to talk to me and tell me their woes. I think that the warm atmosphere of the bookshop helped a lot.

One of my most beautiful encounters was Patrick Modiano, a Nobel and Goncourt prizewinner, who liked to come and see me at La Galcante. Despite his shyness, he had complete confidence in me. His wife would drive him to the shop and leave him with me for the whole day. I spent time with him discussing his subjects, the Second World War and Paris. When Patrick Modiano quoted a telephone number or an address in one of his books, it meant that he had found it in a directory that I had sold him. I had extraordinary moments with him.

I met him recently in Brittany, where my sister lives. There were just five people on the beach of Locquirec, my sister, her granddaughter and me, his wife and him. We recognized and greeted each other. It was another serendipitous encounter with him that confirmed that he was on my path of life

Today, I share my passion for books and beautiful things with my grandchildren. I did not leave with sadness because I realized that all that I’ve learned helped me grow. I continue to look for and buy books and magazines and to share my passion with whomever wants to hear my story.

My name is Adolfo. I repair and sell vacuum cleaners. My father taught me this trade, and I still work here. I opened this shop in 1995 in the Condesa neighborhood.

I would like this trade to continue, so we can keep serving people. Especially for economic reasons—you can't just throw away an appliance and buy a new one. It's a tradition, a trade that has existed for many years. My father started it, I took it over in 1970, and I'm still going today.