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.