An Ode to Viola’s © 2021
Once upon a time on the Island of Manhattan, there was Viola’s. 😍
Viola’s white shingled lingerie shoppe was sandwiched between 2 tall chocolate-brown brick buildings, (like the cream, in an Oreo cookie).
This doll-like enterprise was in a built in a double showcase window form, with its French frosted door, smacked… recessed, behind them. Cheerfully the door chimed as a patron entered or exited.
In those lit windows dated mannequins from the 1940’s… (I guess), permanently posed wearing lingerie…with innocently painted wide open eyes and bow lips.
The cramped store smelled of cardboard boxes and whatever “Viola and her Mister”, shared for lunch (behind the privacy drapes) hung, across its rear.
An entire wall of shelves held numbered boxes of merchandise, up to its high tin ceiling. An attached sliding latter was permanently attached to gain access.
A glass showcase exhibiting sample bras, girdles, hose & lingerie stood parallel to this wall. On its countertop sat a relic register that clanged whenever its drawer shot open with a sale… (and it clanged regularly) six days a week.
The shopkeepers were petite, cute as a pair of salt & pepper figurines, and spoke with a Bavarian, accented English.
👴🧓
When I moved here in 1976, Viola’s was already an old neighborhood favorite “momma — papa shop” … it had been here forever.
Its corner of town was called Germantown… not “the tony Upper Eastside"… as it is known these days.
The marrieds ran the business together, climbing up, then down the attached sliding latter to grab numbered boxes of wares. Knowing exactly which vacant space to return each to its designated spot on the wall of hundreds of boxes. (To us customers it appeared just as a massive puzzle…wall).
Viola showed the undies after calling to up him… the stock number, then he’d hand the box to her. When finished, Viola would hand it to him…to slide -climb up to the vacant hole.
Viola’s charming business stayed exactly the same for decades... but changes happened around it.
The shop reflected in its silent metamorphous…the changes in our society.
Lots of newer people moved into this family friendly neighborhood…with good public schools…
Giant apartment buildings sprung up on the streets around the little old-fashioned shop.
Working women replaced “the house- fraus”, which was a boon… for their business. They needed a convenient place to buy their pantihose, etc. without having to travel to crowded Bloomingdales, which is located in midtown Manhattan. A bus ride away.
The vendor Viola’s merchandise was flying off the wall, (pun intended), the register kept ringing.
As the couple grew older, they were forced to hire help… she is Yolanda.👩
This young woman was in charge of getting the boxes from the high wall, then replacing them. Viola still did the selling. Hubby rung up the sales on the register.
