I was contacted about a month ago by an Englishman named Danel Raymond who told
me that he wanted to come visit Penguin Place in late June and surprise his
girlfriend by proposing to her in my store / warehouse / igloo.
According to Dan his girlfriend liked 2 things, him and penguins (and
not always in that order). So, it was arranged that Dan would fly in
from London on his holiday on June 24th and on the evening of June 25th
the couple would visit Penguin Place. Dan contacted some friends of
theirs that live in the states to come Penguin Place, hide in my
apartment and surprise the couple after he pops the question. I even contacted the local Brooklyn Paper and they felt it worthy of sending a reporter and photographer. What if
she said no was never discussed. My daughter Sophie got to stay up late for the occasion
and spent her post bedtime bonus hour cutting up paper for confetti to shower the happy couple with. Daniel and his soon to be fiancee arrived here around 9 pm and after a couple of minutes of admiring my
penguins and nervous shuffling (waddling) at 9:04 p.m. Dan got down on one knee in front of my old fridge stuffed with plush penguins and opens up his penguin shaped ring
box to reveal a lovely diamond engagement ring to his stunned girlfriend
(Rachel). Sophie pops out from behind a curtain and begins to throw the confetti like crazy and the
friends all pop out from hiding. Quite possibly the most bizarre and joyous penguin place event ever. It even made the paper this week . Hopefully, they'll waddle happily ever
after, and have themselves a family of penguin lovers. The following is the e-mails from Daniel in cronilogical order.
April 24th, 2008 Hi,
my girlfreind is a penguin lover and i am planning on asking her to
get married this summer. i was wondering if i could bring her to your
shop in brooklyn and ask her there?
thank you
ps. ive never been to your shop before, do you think it would be a
sutible place for me to ask her? Daniel Raymond
Daniel,
I know our neighborhood is quite romantic, we're on the water right next to the Brooklyn Bridge with views of lower Manhattan. The penguin place warehouse has never been described as a romantic destination, but I suppose if you're a penguin lover it can be. Let me know when you're thinking about coming by and I'll spruce the place up for you. I will be away July 11th to the 18th.
Eric
April 25th, 2008 Wow thank you that would be great, it will be sometime in the beginning of july but i will definetly make it before your away. again thank you very much and ill let you know nearer the time with more imformation. is your shop open at night? sundown is at 9ish that time of the year so if your not open that late then ill do it during the day sometime. ill let you know the plan nearer the time anyways.
May 11th, 2008, Hi, this is Daniel Raymond (the guy who wants to propose in your shop :-))
ok so I have planned everything out and I hope to be asking my girlfreind to marry me on june 26th in the evening (around 8ish), is that ok by you?
let me explain that i am from england and my girlfreind lives in new york so I am coming to see her again on june 24th and want to ask her on june 26th. As I will be with her all the time and I dont want her to get suspicious I will not be able to come to the shop before to speak with you or arrange anything, but I have alot of freinds who live in the area who are willing to help me. she loves blue roses so I was thinking of having some araound the shop (if thats ok!!) I wasent planning on many and will probably use mostly fake ones so that they would not be messy.
Also the plan is to get a ring box which is in the shape of a penguin and put that somewhere in the shop where she will pick it up and open it.
I really hope this is all ok but if not let me know and i will tone it down.
thank you very very much for letting me to this!!
Daniel Raymond
Daniel,
June 26th is not good for us. What about the 25th or the 27th?
Other than that.
This sounds like a great idea.
my family is really looking forward to it. We live right next door to my penguin place igloo.
I have a 5 year old daughter who will pop out after the fact and shower you guys with little penguins.
if one of your friends needs to come by earlier in the day to ready the shop that's fine with me.
Also, check out the penguin pendant in penguin shaped box on our web site as you can use this for the ring box. h
Eric
ok no problem i will arrange it for the 25th
yeah that ring box you sent me is what i was planning on using thanks, also i was planning on ordering the two penguins hugginh each other, ill do that later this week.
thanks again
Daniel
ps. its gonna be so amazing and your duaghter with the penguins sounds like a really good idea!!
hope all is well.
June 20th, 2008 I now have alot of stuff planned out for the proposal
im just emailing to make sure the 25th of june is still ok for you?
i was hoping to come around 8pm
also i have ordered some fake blue roses (as my girlfreind loves them) is it ok if some freinds come round a little before 8 and arrange them around the shop? (they dont make any mess cause there plastic)
thank you again for letting me do this
June 22th, 2008 Daniel Raymond
hi!
ok so almost eveything is arranged now, i have the ring and i have a penguin ring box for it which is really cool :-)
i just wanted to confirm your address:
220 Water Street
Brooklyn, NY 11201
USA
is that right?
June 24th, 2008 I will be landing in america on tuesday around 1pm and my cell phone number will be 8**-***-****
could you let me have your number just incase
also i have all the fake blue roses and heres my plan - my freind will come to she shop a little before 8 and arrange the flwoers around the shop
then they will leave and hide somewhere around the corner, then i will come in with Rachel and propose and then we will pack up the roses and
leave.
sounds ok?
thank you very much and is there anything in particular you want me to bring for you from london cause i was thinking of bringing you some british chocolates.
thanks again
daniel raymond
t hat's the address, but you won't see anything to do with penguins or penguin place when you get there.
there isn't a buzzer either. you'll need to call me at 1 877 736-4946 in order for me to come down and let you guys in. Same goes for anyone else who might be coming by.
Eric
June 25th, 2008 Last check. My friends will be over by 7 pm and I'll be by with Rachel around 8 pm. Thanks for doing this, I hope it goes as well as I've imagined it. Daniel
Expensive oil, the economy and the weak dollar are effecting everything, so why should penguins be immune? These past few months have seen soaring shipping costs because of the price of gas and transportation. We've tried to absorb these costs and not pass them on to our customers by not re-ordering some of our larger stuffed animals and using Priority Mail. But, where our feathers have really hit the fan is when it comes to penguins we import from Europe. Watches, toys, figurines and even some plush all waddle on over from the old country, and in the past year some prices have actually doubled. We've stopped carrying the popular LAKS adelie penguin watch as they simply became too expensive as well as a couple of other Euroguins, but penguin popular demand necissitated our re-ordering the Castagna Bride & Groom and Penguin Lovers Figurines from Italy and will be available in July, even though the prices has more than doubled in the past year. On the flip side our penguins are very inexpensive if you live in Europe and we've added many European penguin lovers to our customer igloo these past few months.
About a year ago Dana Rubinstein of The Brooklyn Paper wrote a story about Penguin Place. It came out before we had the new website and this blog space, so for your penguin reading pleasure here it is.
The world's largest online penguin paraphernalia retailer -- Brooklyn's
own "Penguin Place" -- is so ruffled by a Hollywood-inspired explosion
in penguin competition, that he's re-tooling his Web site.
"In a couple of years I went from being the only online penguin store, to one of a few," said
Eric Bennett, referring to the impact that the hit movies, "March
of the Penguins", Surf's Up" and "Happy Feet," had on his business. "The penguin
pie got bigger, but my sales have struggled just to stay the same." Bennett, an average-sized, youthful looking, dad-about-DUMBO, has operated his home based
www.penguin-place. com for about 10 years. But, this is the first time his
dominion over the online penguin paraphernalia business has been
challenged. Or even, frankly, noticed.
In response to competition Bennett, 47, will re-launch his ancient by internet standards web site later this month.
"My present 'Penguin Place' is ... very cute and quaint, and everyone
likes it, but it was built in 1997 and for the internet that's like
driving a Model T in the left lane of the interstate. Folks are
speeding past me on their way to the mall," he said.
Bennett has been in the business of selling penguin bric-a-brac for
over 20 years, his Web site preceded by actual retail outlets at South
St. Seaport in NYC and Harborplace in Baltimore.
Since 1997, he's run his Web site out of what he's dubbed "The Igloo"
-- a home office on the fifth floor of a decrepit old factory that some
call the "DUMBO Museum" for its apparent refusal to go luxury, like the
rest of its neighbors in Brooklyn's new SoHo.
The Igloo itself harkens back to a less orderly, pre-bar code age: An
old refridgerator is home to a small rookery of penguin stuffed
animals, penguin costumes hang from old pipes that run along the
ceiling, while boxes on shelves erupt with penguin onesies, T-shirts,
slippers, wallpaper border, and less mundane penguin items, like the
Waddling Penguin Pooper -- which, after you wind it up, deposits small
brown plastic candies from its behind (yes, it's a big seller).
One of the few penguin items not for sale is a bottle of Penguin Ale
given him by Rex Hunt, the former governor of the Falkland Islands,
home to the Rockhopper penguin.
Some of Bennett's most ardent buyers include members of the big city
philharmonics (apparently, because they resemble penguins in their
tuxedos and bowties), and a running group for overweight people called
"The Waddlers."
Bennett's entanglement with the Gentoos and Blackfoots of the world
began when he was a freshman at Queens College and dating his "first
real girlfriend."
"She liked gymnastics, the ballet, and she also liked penguins," said
Bennett. "Me being a normal 18-year-old guy, I had a choice, ballet
tickets or penguins. I started getting her penguins. And she
reciprocated. It sort of became known amongst our friends and family
that penguins were our thing. "When we split up in my junior year, I
had a major foothold in penguin paraphernalia," said Bennett.
A couple of years after graduating, Bennett visited Boston's Quincy
Market, which had just been revamped and was flush with stores selling
all manner of kitschy stuff.
There was an all pig shop called Hog Heaven, the Cow Pit with its stuffed cows and bovine salt-and-pepper
shakers, The Lefty Shop and even a unicorn store filled with "mythological things." So when
the South Street Seaport opened in New York a year later,
Bennett visited the Seaport and "on a dare from a friend" submitted an application to open a penguin
pushcart history was made.
And so, on May 15, 1985, "Next Stop South Pole" was hatched. The
ex-girlfriend, now a theater set designer designed the cart, and
Bennett filled it with penguin items he'd bought from toy and gift trade shows.
"The first week, my parents and grandparents would pull up chairs about 20 feet away,
near the food court, and just watch, because they couldn't comprehend
what I was doing. They needed to see me selling penguins for a living with their own eyes." said Bennett.
Soon, he moved into a kiosk, and then into a store on Pier 17. He
eventually had another location in Baltimore, seasonal carts in Miami and
Colorado, a mail-order catalog and a quarterly magazine about penguins
called "The Penguin Post."
Along the way, Bennett nurtured his love for penguins -- he says, "I've
never met a penguin or penguin lover I didn't like, which is more than I can say for
most people I've met."
Meanwhile, Bennett has had to adapt to a shifting business climate. In
the 1990s, as the rest of the city became more tourist friendly, South
Street Seaport lost its luster. And, the Internet grew. Soon, he ran
his business entirely online.
"By 2000, I was grossing more on-line than I was as a retail shop at the Seaport," said Bennett.
The ex-girlfriend, the progenitor of Bennett's penguin fixation, and
now a purchaser of merchandise for Disney theme parks, said she's not
surprised by Bennett's success.
"He definitely has an enterprising sort of spirit, so he's able to make it work," said the former flame, Robin Feinsot.
Bennett was typically humble about his accomplishments.
"I was 24 when I came up with the penguin concept," said Bennett. "The year before I thought a spooky carwash was a good idea."
Well, one out of two ain't bad.
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