For fun, I once asked a number of friends and family what type of person they found more irritating – the cocky, arrogant braggart who has achieved what he or she claims, or the braggart who has achieved little but attempts to boost his self-esteem and image in the eyes of others with exaggeration and lies. Certainly the very talented, gifted, and fortunate who rubs achievement in other’s faces is, to me, a very cruel display of insensitivity and lack of humility. Yet, all of whom I asked the question found the braggart with nothing but empty victories to be the most offensive, perhaps because two sins, boasting and lying, are greater than one.

This is why my cousin, whom I will call LD, was so offensive to everyone who met him. He had no friends, only family to suffer his excesses. For me, he comes to mind often when I hear excessive bragging. LD was a borderline pathological braggart, if such a thing exists. To hear him speak was to hear of a man who had done everything and had scaled the walls of human achievement. In actuality, LD had numerous jobs, primarily in the food industry, managing small local restaurants.

He was not just guilty of inflated claims, but also of stepping on others if it served his need to impress and boost his ego. One day was particularly disturbing because LD decided to punish someone for his own gain. And, like a lion on the hunt, he chose the weakest, not the deserving, as his prey for dinner.
It was a Sunday afternoon, and on this family visit to his home, LD began a rant about an employee who was not performing to his liking. As he provided us with details of the man’s work, he whipped himself up into a frenzy, telling us how this employee should be fired. Hell, he said, I’m going to fire him right now. He picked up the phone, and in a most humiliating way and for all to hear quite well, LD fired that poor helpless chap. When through with the call, he strutted like any peacock, so all would know, firsthand, the power that he wielded. On occasion, we found his bragging humorous or entertaining, but on that day, like most, it was only embarrassing and sad.

Recently, while touring the Bronx, a real estate agent pointed out two art storage and shipping companies that had enormous inventories of fine art and were virtually unknown: Transcon International and New Yorker Warehouse. Why the Bronx? It is an excellent location for in-city and out-of-city transport, the rents are cheap, and the Bronx is the perfect locale for the business wanting to keep a low profile. I was told that one of these places may inventory as much as a quarter BILLION dollars of art, dealing with the major museums of New York City. Yet they are virtually unknown, with barely a placard on the door and a name which tells passersby nothing about what really lies behind those walls. New Yorker Warehouse’s truck displays an enigmatic and nondescript “N.Y.W.” I found nothing online about either company, except one article in the New York Times that gives very few details.

In a world of social networking, tireless self-promotion has become the norm. But for those who have achieved much, whether individual or business, their work or enterprise speaks for itself – no need to self-promote, for the accolades will come. And, at one extreme, there are those who deliberately shun notoriety, feeling that only ill can come of publicity. For companies like Transcon and NYW, there is no benefit to notoriety, only risk to extraordinarily valuable inventories. Keep a low profile, don’t brag, just run the business. And, were he alive, I am sure they would have no interest in hiring a man like Poor Cousin LD…

Getting down to business: Don’t Bet Against Many Goods, Trimmings for Sale, Instincts, Brawling Over Brands, Because I’m The Best (Part 1 and Part 2), Released From Captivity, Pearl Paint

There are places that are decidedly the other side of the tracks, and Grand Street in SoHo has been one of those places. As SoHo gentrified, Grand Street, only a block from the honky tonk Canal Street, retained a frontier feeling. Rents remained much lower than Prince and Spring streets – prime SoHo. It was here that Broadway Panhandler relocated when their prime SoHo rent became too onerous.
Even today, Grand Street retains vestiges of a former time and businesses that service the working class and industry. At the corner of Thompson Street, one can still find John De Lorenzo & Bro., Iron and Sheet Metal Contractor.  Across from the French Culinary Institute at 458 Broadway was the previous site of the Singer sewing machine company’s first headquarters and showroom, built 1857. At 175 Lafayette and the corner of Grand Street was a supplier that I once frequented often: Rudolph Bass Woodworking Machinery & Supplies, founded 1918. At 183 Grand is the John Jovino Gun Shop, a sole survivor of the gun district near the Centre Street police headquarters. At 176 Grand is the home of Lendy Electric, a classic hard-core New York-style contractor’s supply house.

The street bridges a variety of neighborhoods – SoHo, Little Italy, Chinatown, and the Lower East Side. The street is home to Ferrara’s Bakery and Kamwo Pharmacy. Heading east through Chinatown, there are numerous Chinese and Vietnamese supply shops and restaurants. Further east, once will find Kossar’s Bialys and the Doughnut Plant. The merchants are a smorgasbord – a worthwhile excursion for any urban explorer. For a virtual walk down Grand Street and as a guide, I recommend NY Songlines.

Tuesday night, a group of us discovered Loopy Mango at 78 Grand Street, strictly by happenstance. This quirky, eclectic retailer came as a very pleasant surprise. The shop sells home goods, furniture, antiques, textiles, clothing, gift, specialty yarns, and knitting and crocheting supplies. The owners, Waejong Kim and Anna Pulvermakher, met in a fabric painting class at New York’s Fashion Institute of Technology. Loopy Mango was founded in 2004 in a tiny storefront on Avenue B in the East Village. They moved to DUMBO and in 2010, they moved back to Manhattan to their current 2000-square foot shop at 78 Grand Street.

Original 1880 Victorian shutters enclose four dressing rooms and are complemented by a tin ceiling detail. Continuing through the boutique to the backroom, one is greeted by a 15-foot skylight and purpose-built partition encased by replica ionic Roman columns. The interior of the space was designed and built by Waejong and her husband, Eric Schultz, an antiques dealer from Massachusetts. The shop also offers knitting classes and workshops.

For an urban jungle safari, take a long walk down Grand Street. After all, where else do you find a place called Loopy Mango with seven Giraffes in a Canoe?