In Ipswich, an Egyptian merchant legacy
Ipswich — Gabriel Hakim came to this country in the spring of 1938 as the Egyptian representative to the World’s Fair, promoting trade and industry. A year later, he was back for good.
“My father was determined to stay here because he loved America,” said his daughter, Ginette McCarthy of Ipswich. “He loved the freedom of this country and lack of bureaucracy.”
He sold art and other fine goods at several shops he opened in New York and, later, in Magnolia. Now his daughter and his grandson are carrying on that legacy.
At Foreign Affairs, the gift shop McCarthy opened on Market Street 25 years ago, she sells gifts from around the world — Vietnamese silk lanterns, blue Larimar jewelry from the Dominican Republic, birch bark boxes from Russia and even pewter from Biloxi, Miss.
“We even have items made by the Masai tribe in Africa,” said her son, David McCarthy.
The international fare may be new, but the owners’ merchant vocation dates back more than 100 years to Egypt, where their ancestors were Egyptian art and antiquities dealers.
McCarthy, who was born in Cairo but raised speaking French and English at home, was 9 when her father moved the family to New York in 1939. They lived in a small apartment above the shop they ran across from the Plaza Hotel. Her parents sold exotic carpets, inlaid furniture and Egyptian jewelry.
Her mother, Raymonde Hakim, was an interior designer and dressmaker. McCarthy remembered meeting a young Gloria Vanderbilt at a fitting for a dress her mother was making for the heiress.
