After 15 years at the Seaport I bid farewell for good while taking a
risk that on-line shopping was the way of the future. I took my lone
full-time employee Heather along to Brooklyn as she’d been with me since
the Fulton Market days. I figured I’d not only need some company, but
Heather also knew more about computers than me and of course I’d need
her help just in case this internet thing actually did take off. We set
up shop in the back room of my Brooklyn loft that summer and as the
orders trickled in, and I mean trickle in, we mailed them out and
waited. We only filled on average three or four a day those first
couple of lazy months, and most of our modest sales those early days
were still via our mail order catalog. So, we primarily spent that
first Summer in Brooklyn on a sort of South Street Seaport free
holiday. Finally emancipated from having to be open by 10 a.m. and not
closing before 9 p.m., each and every day, 365 days a year for a decade
and a half. Now, it was just sleeping late, renting movies, long
lunches, website updates in my pajamas, and what most people take for
granted, finally having free weekends like the rest of the world.
Slow sales or not, this was the kind of break I had only dreamed of.
Meanwhile in Baltimore the sun had yet to set on the last of the Next
Stop…South Pole franchise. But in September of 1999, three months after
the N.Y. store closed my Harborplace lease was finally up and once
again my friends and I rented a U-Haul and took my penguins home. What
made the Brooklyn “Igloo” interesting is that I brought in all the fun
penguin fixtures and display pieces from my now closed shops as well as
the actual penguin inventory. Perhaps it was nostalgia or perhaps I was
just using what was already available, but even though my new location
was on the 5th floor of an industrial building on the Brooklyn
waterfront, with no sign or buzzer downstairs to indicate we were
there, Heather and I set the cavernous, windowless room up to look just
like one of our stores. The jewelry was back in their display case,
the penguin race was on its icy looking table ready to escalate and
slide at a moments notice, dozens of penguin plush sat neatly in rows on
the same cabinet shelves that they did at the Seaport and the penguin
shaped t-shirt displays were up on the wall. The only big difference
was the larger store storage tables now held packing supplies and boxes,
and the table tops in the center of the room that once displayed books
and calendars were now free to pack penguins. Oh yeah, the biggest
difference was we were now in a windowless room on top floor of a 19th
century factory building.
The first months sales slowly picked up by Autumn, and the coming
holiday season proved reassuring. Then in 2000 it seemed the digital
age had arrived and along with it the world would learn of Penguin-Place.com . It all
started when a friend of mine working for Brooklyn Bridge Magazine wrote
a full page article about us, then about a month later myself and
Penguin Place found ourselves on the front page of the N.Y. Times Sunday
City Section, and a month after that a half page spread in People
Magazine. The picture on the Penguin Place Home Page is of Heather and I
from the People article.
That was followed by a couple of t.v. and radio appearances and
presto we were not just on the map, but all over it. With all that free
publicity and more people feeling secure about on-line ordering our
holiday season at the turn of the millenium made me feel that leaving
the Seaport a year earlier was the right call. By early Summer of 2000
it was time to decide to commit to another print catalog shoot for the
upcoming season, but by then I was secure enough with the web site, and
fed up enough with all the time, work and cost that went into my mail
order catalog that I dropped it altogether, never to return. Sadly, it
was also around that time that Heather bid farewell Penguin Place and
moved to Boise, Idaho for of all things, a boyfriend. Later that
Summer Jeannie came on board the penguin train as my assistant, I got
married (not to Jeannie, but to Molly). Then on the morning of
September 11th in full view of myself and the penguins the unthinkable
happened. Not knowing what to do that afternoon after starring at the
news all day I checked my e-mail and to my surprise found a few orders.
How could people order on a day like today I thought? But then I read
the messages that went along with the orders. Most went along the lines
of ”it’s my little boys birthday next week and he loves penguins, I
know given your location you may have trouble getting these out to us
but please let me know if you can. He’s going to be five, he loves
penguins and I’d hate to disappoint him”. Although the streets were
blocked off in my neighborhood for the next few days being we were so
close to the East River Bridges, the next day I walked the 3/4 mile
distance to the post office with the packages in hand in my own small
penguin gesture of not letting the terrorists win and not disappointing
little Jimmy.
The holiday season of 2001 was obviously a sober one and Penguin Place
did what it could by raising $1000 for the Fireman’s Widows and .
But, as the years past from that tragedy and we waddled on into the
new millennium the future looked promising indeed for Penguin Place.
Molly and I had a little girl named Sophie and then came Rose. The
Penguin Place igloo in turn was chopped in half to accommodate our
growing family as we built another bedroom (such is loft living), and in
2007 our original and at this point antiquated web site was traded in
for the present (now also antiquated) web site. In 2007 we also began
to feel that our long time live / work loft on Water St. in Brooklyn was
in jeopardy as a real estate developer had purchased our building
during the boom and was quickly emptying it of tenants. The first to go
was the commercial businesses on the floors below us, and next came the
residential lofts. Being in a unique situation among my neighbors as we
not only lived there, but had a few thousand penguins to account for as
well we held out as long as we could, but realized by the end of 2008
that we could not fight our new landlord alone, so in 2009 my wife and I
decided after coming to terms that we could not duplicate our situation
in Brooklyn anywhere in the NY area (or at least in a NY area that we
wanted to live) decided to relocate to Northampton, Mass. Why
Northampton? Well, it’s a great little city, Molly has family there,
our new place is perfect and right downtown, the landlord loves (o.k.
likes) penguins and is more than o.k. that I have Penguin Place in
his building (and the Igloo actually has windows with lovely views),
the schools are excellent and it’s a wonderful place to raise a family.
Plus, we’re only 2 1/2 hours from N.Y.C. which ironically is just
about how long it took for me to go from the Seaport via the A & F
trains and Q-1 bus all the way home to my parents Queens apartment that
first night a mere 25 years ago.
The early 90’s were an interesting time of transition and uncertainty
for NSSP after we were “exiled” to the Fulton Market Building. It was
apparent to me that the new management team at the Seaport were looking
in a different direction than leasing to the unique, small businesses
that were part of the Seaports early years, and the new direction
included chain stores like The Gap, Sharper Image and Victoria Secret
and not mom and pops like me. The original, historic Fulton Market
building was still open, but just barely, with nearly half of it empty
and maybe about 25% of the foot traffic of Pier 17, yet between our
loyal customers who sought us out and our mail order catalog we were
able to hang in there. It was during this Seaport Sibera period that
drove me to search for ways to promote NSSP internally as well as
externally. I began to emphasis the mail order penguin catalog more and
more, and first thought of the concept of an all penguin lovers
newsletter that would be neither a nature publication nor a means to
sell penguin products, but a newsletter for folks who were just
interested in all things penguins. Ironically, between 1992 and 1995
partly because of my aggressive self promotion and perhaps the world
taking notice of our stubborn adherence to our all penguin concept,
Next Stop South Pole got in more press via print, radio and television
than any three year period before or since. Ironically, though stuck in
the second division of the complex, the Seaport management team used us
in promotional ads and would even tell perspective tenants “if an
all-penguin store can make it here, you can too.”
Then, after three long years in 1995 the Seaport finally offered me a
space back on the Pier 17. It was a small 210 square foot shop on the
first floor of the Pier and of course I jumped at it. It was less than
half the size of the shop I had been occupying in the Fulton Market as
well as our originally Pier 17 space, but I had done my time and proved
to management that the all-penguin concept could survive even the worst
of locations at the Seaport. I moved into the small shop in early 1995
but because of the space and storage limitations I would use the back
room of my loft space on the Brooklyn waterfront for storage. On March
15th of ‘95 to celebrate the opening of the new store as well the 10th
Anniversary of NSSP we had a Penguin Party at the bar next door to our
new location. About 75 people attended including family, friends and
loyal customers, and after some beverages were consumed we even had a
spirited Best Waddle contest. The anniversary also gave me occasion to
debut the first issue of The Penguin Post
newsletter I sold for .75¢ an issue and yearly subscriptions for $5.00
that included four issues annually. The Post went on to publish
quarterly for the next 7 years, churning out 29 issues until with almost
1,200 subscribers, but eventually it became too much and too expensive
for me to do with a staff of one. Especially a married with children
staff of one. Another major penguin turning point came in 1997 when at
the urging of a friend who was a video game designer helped me develop
and launch Penguin-Place.com .
Initially as a simple non interactive home page, but within a few
months our Penguin Place on-line catalog was up and running. On-line
shopping was obviously in its infancy back then and most people who
found us via the internet either called or mailed in their orders, but
the internet experiment had begun and there was no waddling back.
By 1998, about a third of our gross revenue was via print or on-line
ordering and given our diminutive retail space our shop was at times
overflowing with boxes waiting to be picked up by UPS. (especially
during the holiday season), and many an afternoon saw these boxes spill
out into the hallway adjacent our shop. Seaport management was not
pleased, and the only alternative was to shuttle inventory to my loft
just on the other side of the Brooklyn Bridge more and more for storage ,
shipping and receiving. The good thing about my loft was it was in an
old factory building. The first four floors were still used for light
manufacturing and other businesses and the top floor was residential and
artist lofts. I wasn’t an artist, but the former tenant was and he had
built a very large 600 square foot windowless room for his sculpture
studio in the rear of my space, and this room was rapidly transforming
into the Penguin Place Igloo. Soon my three year lease for my first
floor Seaport space would expire and the latest Seaport management team
began negotiations by telling me that they had aperspective tenant
interested in my space, and this un-named entity was willing to pay
double the rent that I was paying. At that point I was already on the
fence about whether I should stay on at the Seaport at my present rent,
with traffic down and more and more of my sales coming via the web
site. I told the Seaport that I hoped they were serious about this
mystery tenant because I could not match their offer. In fact I
explained, any rent increase was out of the question if they wanted to
retain the penguin shop. They stood by their demand for a huge rent
increase, making my decision to leave that much easier. On May 31st I
rented a U-Haul and with the help of a few friends piled our penguins
and some store fixtures in the back and moved it all to the Brooklyn
side of the river. There would be no looking back, so after 15 years
Next Stop…South Pole was no more and thus began Penguin-Place.com
By early 1987 Next Stop…South Pole had in a year and a half gone from
a push cart with a two week lease to a 200 square foot kiosk to a 400
square foot kiosk, and now we were being actively recruited by Rouse
Corp. execs from around the country. Rouse was the developer behind the
successful Faneuil Hall / Quincy Marketplace in Boston and the South
St. Seaport in NY and were now expanding the Festive Marketplace concept
to seaports, harbors and river towns around the country. NSSP was
approached by reps from Miami, Detroit, Washington D.C. , St. Louis,
Baltimore, Seattle and San Francisco. Apparently, these new Rouse
locations were looking for shops who’s concept was working within such a
retail environment. Of course I was flattered and enjoyed all the
attention, but considering I was still learning on the job and new to
the business world I decided to take a more conservative and pragmatic
approach. First, I opted to go from a black and white, xerox mail order
penguin catalog to a more professional (anything would have been more
professional) glossy color version. By now, my penguin inventory was
around 200 items and I decided to lay the catalog out in four pages, and
dividing the pages in half giving me 8 separate categories. Plush,
Penguinware, Jewelry, Houseware, Holiday, etc. We also began keeping a
sign up for a mailing list book next to the register. It was
pre-computer days, so everything was done by hand. Just mailing a
couple of thousand catalogs could take a week. Next, we jumped at the
opportunity to move from our kiosk in the Fulton Market Building to the
brand new Pier 17 complex the Seaport was building on the East River.
After some negotiation we leased a 600 square foot store on the 3rd
floor that would for me become the high point of NSSP’s tenure at the
Seaport. With about 6 months lead time Robin and I designed the
penguin store that would come about as close (within our limited budget)
to what I had envisioned my hypothetical penguin store would look like
years earlier. The store would take on the feel of a 1950’s sitcom
home, but in our version of the kitchen our retro fridge, shelves and
pantry would be filled with all sorts of kitchen penguin goodies. On a
chair at the table a giant plush penguin sat while wearing a penguin
apron, his penguin plate was filled with fake rubber fish, and on the
table would be all the items a proper penguin kitchen needed, penguin
salt & pepper shakers, napkins, dish towels, pot holders, tea pots,
over mitts, etc. The same look and feel for the bathroom, living room,
bedroom etc. BTW, I still had that same vintage fridge until this past
June when we moved, and I still have the old 1950’s tv that was in our
mock “Penguin Father Knows Best” living room that played nothing but
penguin nature, Tennessee Tuxedo and Chilly Willy VHS tapes, and it
still works. Our secret for the tv was we gutted the inside of an old
television and put in a new monitor. That’s how a 1950’s black and
white tv could play video’s in color.
At the same time I decided to take up one of the Rouse recruiters
from Baltimore’s Inner Harbor on expanding, and in the summer of 1988 I
opened a small NSSP shop at the Harbor Place in Baltimore. I was very
impressed with their management team and the Inner Harbor in general.
Baltimore was only about 3 hours from NY and besides I had a girlfriend
going to Georgetown in D.C.. Looking back, the late 80’s and early
90’s was undoubtedly the golden age of Next Stop…South Pole as a retail
store. Both the Seaport and Harborplace were unsurpassed as tourist
destinations in NY and Baltimore and it was always fun being there.
Then in 1990 I was approached by a Japanese group from Osaka who were
intrigued with my all-penguin concept. They informed me that they
wanted to open their own store called Penguin House in a mall next to
the Osaka Ring of Fire Aquarium. After some initial translator issues I
got the idea that they didn’t want me to run, manage or design the
store. In fact they didn’t want me to do much of anything, but they did
want me to “consult” on the initial inventory and most of all go to
Osaka as the American spokesman for the store and the all penguin
concept. Apparently, making it appear like an American store and
concept was worth a million dollars in publicity for them. So in August
of 1990 myself and my Baltimore manager Patty Smith were flown to Japan
for a series of interviews, meetings and press conferences. It wasn’t
our store, but we were treated and were suppose to act like it was. It
was all quite a surreal, interesting and very fun experience.
By early 1992 my Baltimore shop had expanded from a cramped 250 sf kiosk
to one about double the size just down the hall in the Light St.
Pavilion, but ironically around that same time an ill wind of change
began to blow at the Seaport. The original management team I had worked
with since the beginning were now just about all gone and the Seaport
was beginning to lose its luster. The city was changing, Times Square,
Central Park, Greenwich Village were all safer, cleaner and more tourist
friendly than in a long time. No longer was the Seaport such an oasis
in the city. Plus, although still a destination the novelty and had
worn off. Many of the original Seaport tenants were also gone and
turnover was becoming epidemic. The new management team were reacting
to these changes with mostly mixed or poor results as many of the
changes were short term strategies and lacked continuity and vision.
The new breed of tenants the Seaport were interested in were not the
unique or had anything to do with New York or Seaport as they began to
lease to chain stores for quick fixes to fill empty spaces and pay the
high rents. But, of these stores the Seaport had, the less interesting a
draw it became. Then in the Spring of 1992 the new Seaport paid us a
visit as management told me that NSSP was being replaced by of all
things a Nintendo Store. I bitched and screamed. Told them they were
being short sighted. But, they said Nintendo liked my location and they
were in and I was out. I had about three months to leave and
eventually was offered a comparable size place not on Pier 17, but back
in the old Fulton Market Building. Since its completion in 1988 Pier
17 had become jewel of the Seaport complex and reduced the original
Fulton Market Building to an obsolete also ran. It’s where stores went
to die. But, with little or no choice we waddled on over hoping that
loyal customers and our mail order catalog could keep us going until
Seaport management came to their senses. Robin who had been with me
since the beginning decided it was time to move on and pursue her career
in the theater, so in the Fall of 1992 I grudgingly moved back to the
“reservation” and began to do my time in Fulton Market purgatory.
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