On Windsor Place there is a shoe repair shop that's been in business for 25 years called Roman Expert Shoe Repair. I've been meaning to drop some boots off their for a while, I'll be so happy if they can fix them because shoe shopping is very challenging for me.
Roman's is one of those places where time seems to have stopped, please note that the sewing machine above is one the man working there told me he actualy uses. Well, where better to find something old that is kept useful than a shoe repair place. They also work with leather garments, I imagine.
They have a small selection of shoe polishes and various things in appealingly dated packages. I'm always happy to come across that stuff, old and musty and oh so refreshing. When it comes to design, so often new is just shitty or contrived. I wonder why that is. Why is new shitty and overpriced?
8 comments:
I love this place - thanks for posting about it. For some reason, one of my favorite little "pockets" of the neighborhood is this spot with Roman's and the No-Name-Florist. Several times a day (cause I freelance at home) I take a five minute walk to get out of the house, and I usually find myself purposely walking out to the end of the block here. Great pix!
I like that stretch of that block too. Nearby someone has paper snowflakes taped to their window every winter which I find very welcoming for some reason. Looked nice on the day of our first snowfall this year.
The shop that is now a florists has had many lives. A few years ago it was a children's clothing shop, but I've forgotten the other businesses it housed. Once I got lucky and found goody bag items there for my son's birthday - tiny cloth vampire dolls that made this crazy multi-toned scream when you squeezed them. What a find.
I think there was a little book store in that space once upon a time.
I love this place, too. It's so immensely practical to get good shoes repaired than to replace them...the sort of way our society ought to think more often. He's done a great job for me.
A lovely, poetic post. Thank you
this place is the best! he has worked magic wtih some of my most favorite shoes! two thumbs up!
Unfortunately, my wife took her beloved $200 boots to Roman's and, because of the proprietor's 'black plastic bag' filing system, her boots were returned to another customer. No records, no receipts, no customer phone numbers. Nothing. His only response was to invite my wife to "take another pair of shoes from the pile"!! I am not kidding. If he felt at all bad about the loss, he didn't show it. I had previously waited 3 weeks for a "tomorrow" job to be completed- I would come in as instructed the next day, only to find him rummaging under piles of plastic bags to discover my job was not yet done. 3 weeks of this, then $200 boots. We will never go back.
Too bad Alan! I guess I got lucky when I didn't have that problem, in fact in my case I was the one that issues with time.
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