Apr 11, 2010

Three Merchants Beat the Recession by Selling to KidsBy Michael WineripPost-Gazette.com

Michael Rosenberg, 58; Burhan Okuyan, 52; and Yosef Shimron, 52, all veteran shopkeepers on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, don’t know one another. Mr. Rosenberg is in clothing; Mr. Okuyan, art framing; Mr. Shimron, computer services. Yet all three, on their own, figured out the same thing. And that discovery has helped them survive the Great Recession when so many shops around them have closed: adults who stop spending on themselves in bad times will still spend on children.

Since the downturn, Mr. Rosenberg has switched the clothing at his shop from 60 percent women’s to 80 percent newborn and children’s. Mr. Okuyan started working with nearby schools, and now says he’s more likely to get an order to frame a 3-year-old’s refrigerator art than a lithograph or an oil by an established contemporary artist. Mr. Shimron has placed a big sign in his window offering lessons for children in building a computer, one of several kid services he’s added in the last year.

While they expect to survive the recession, all three have been hurt. Mr. Rosenberg says business is down 20 percent; Mr. Okuyan, 15 percent; Mr. Shimron, nearly 50 percent. Still, they count themselves lucky. Every day, Mr. Rosenberg walks down Amsterdam Avenue from his apartment on West 90th to his shop near West 79th and tabulates the recession’s impact. “Twelve empty storefronts,” he said. Mr. Okuyan just has to look out his window onto Broadway: “We lost a flower shop, vitamin store, bookstore, Malaysian restaurant, women’s clothing store.”

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