By Jeremy Walsh
It is perhaps doubly appropriate that the Sunnyside shop run by neighborhood residents Dan and Tara Glasser is called Stray Vintage. They named it after a song by one of their favorite bands, Calexico, but the idea of opening a vintage clothing and accessories store was a sort of stray idea reached while wandering around Sunnyside.
“We were just in the neighborhood one day and said, ‘Wow, that’s a really neat storefront,’” Dan said. “We’d always said we’d be good at a business if with both got involved.”
The couple developed a taste for ferreting out great deals at yard and estate sales while living in upstate New Paltz before they came to Woodside in 2001. They opened Stray Vintage at 48−09 Skillman Ave. in November 2006.
After 2 1⁄2 years, the couple have expanded their inventory to include not only the gems they bring back from estate sales across the northeast, but also consignments and products made by people in the neighborhood.
Those include a book by artist Joe Bluhm full of caricatures he drew while working at an amusement park that were rejected by the subjects of the works, Queens T−shirts made by local artist Ciara Eland and refurbished vintage jewelry by another local artisan.
“It supports the neighborhood,” Dan Glasser said, noting the percentage of consignment items the shop stocks has dropped substantially compared with new local merchandise.
“We’ve met so many people,” said Tara Glasser. “It’s been nice.”
The shop also carries a selection of Beanpod soy candles and stylish, snarky greeting cards by Seltzer, a Long Island City−based company.
But the vintage records, end tables, mirrors, women’s jackets and decorative glassware are just as appealing as the newer items.
“Everything is hand−picked with thought given to it,” Tara said. “People aren’t just bringing their stuff in and putting it on the floor.”
And if a customer is friendly enough, the Glassers may take individual requests for items when they search estate sales from New Jersey to Vermont, like an antique perambulator, requested by a new mother, that the couple ran across the next weekend.
“She went in the next day and got it,” Tara said. “We see her around the neighborhood sometimes.”
The store is one of several Skillman Avenue businesses aimed at a hipper, artsier clientele that has made the neighborhood their home as rents in artist strongholds like Long Island City continue to climb.
The Glassers believe the street will continue to develop as a desirable commercial strip, but in the meantime they realize that living their dream means making some compromises. Tara still works part time as a film production accountant to make ends meet.
Still, she said, hitting estate sales every weekend is a great way to combine business and pleasure.
“You go out, you find something, you clean it up, you learn about it,” Dan Glasser said. “Now, every time you go out, you’re more knowledgeable about what you want to find.”
Reach reporter Jeremy Walsh by e−mail at jewalsh@cnglocal.com or by phone at 718−229−0300, Ext. 154.
