BY JESSICA SEIGEL | My father always told me: “Go to funerals. People don’t forget.” And then came my father’s funeral — and there was our beloved shoemaker from around the corner, Raphael Davidson (a.k.a. David) paying a shiva call for my dad’s 2021 passing. And I will never forget.
I already adored David as my sole consigliere, watch fixer and zipper whisperer working out of his homey shop, David’s Shoe and Watch Repair, at 460 Hudson St., at Barrow Street, since 1982. A Russian-speaking immigrant from Uzbekistan, he was like my grandpa from the old country, with his Old World repair skills and neighborly vibe.
Many Villagers feel that same way. Several dozen of us gathered Tuesday evening to celebrate David and the closing of his shop after 42 years, forced out by rising rents and pandemic-shutdown debt. He has since moved his jewelry and watch repair to a window kiosk at a dry cleaner two blocks north at 508 Hudson St., at Christopher St., but the shoe repair part of his business will close.
“Nazdarovya,” David, 79, taught us to say as we lifted glasses to wish him well in his next incarnation.
“Nazdarovya,” we said back, lifting Champagne in plastic glasses all around. (A woman he did not know brought the Champagne.)
Everyone had their own story — of the impossible shoe strap fixed, the free quickie zipper repair, the watch brought back to life, even the lamp rewired. They spoke of the peace and calm that soft-spoken David exudes, creating a focus of mom-and-pop friendliness ever disappearing with Village rising rents and growing tourist entertainments.
“We can’t live without you, David,” said Rick Chavolla, a political science professor, dropping in from his home around the corner on Barrow Street. “We bring everything in here when it breaks.” In his case, an alarm clock, an old radio, even window blinds.
“Sometimes we just come by to see him,” said Chavolla, including his wife, Anna, in the “we.” “He just makes you feel good. I feel so at peace when I come in here.”
“David’s been a staple,” said singer/actress Paula Newman. “I’m mourning the loss of this place. All the mom-and-pop shops have closed and it’s become very difficult to live in this neighborhood.”
In the last few years, the Village has lost three shoe repair shops. In one that remains, folks complain that the owner has a sour disposition — not Villagey at all.
With so much love for David, Villager Jane Duncan organized an ongoing GoFundMe that raised $14,102 to help him move — and is still active.
Recent attention to his plight has included Village Preservation naming him June business of the month.
But the funding is not enough to cover a $67,600 rent debt accrued over six months of pandemic closure, with only $1,500 received for pandemic relief. In a sad but familiar Village story, his business could not support the steep rent increase he faced had he renewed his expiring lease, according to Village Preservation.
“I am upset. What can I say?” David said. “They want so much money.”
And he could not sell his equipment or many items in inventory, such as an antique Gustav Becker mechanical grandfather clock.
“I have to leave everything behind — no one wants it,” he said. “Even the clock on the wall, nobody wants to buy it.”
The space where his new jewelry-and-watch-repair window kiosk is located, though, is costly and noisy, with the dry cleaning machines and irons working round the clock.
“It’s a very tiny, small place and they do dry cleaning in the shop. The machine is going do-do-do-do all the time. So much noise,” David said. “But I have no choice. People gave me $14,000 for me to continue the business. So I don’t want to take the money and walk away.”
Like neighborhood residents, David mourns the loss of his shop.
“Everything ends one of these days,” he said. “It’s not a lucky end.”
But his spirits, he said, have been lifted by the outpouring of love and the gathering — with Villagers lingering into the night outside his former shop, even after he closed and went home with a cold.
“I am very touched,” he said, “very very touched.”
He would most like a quieter, more appropriate spot for his watch and jewelry repair business — and to sell the cast-iron shoe repair equipment and the antique grandfather clock.
David’s story reminds me of when the Portuguese greengrocer Vegetable Garden on Bleecker Street closed. Though there were Korean delis selling produce it wasn’t the same — they weren’t indigenous. In the case of a shoe repair shop — we are losing not just an individual — but a craft. There needs to be someone to carry on the tradition. But where? It’s really about a whole culture disappearing. In terms of saving the grandfather clock — I suggest getting in touch with professional watch repair places, e.g., Time Pieces, which lost its brick & mortar shop on Greenwich Ave. but might have an online location.