Sabine Heinlein has established “The Sunnyside Sound Project” where she interviews someone in the neighborhood every week and records it.

This week, she has interviewed Dan Glasser from Stray Vintage.  The passage below is her write up. Click on the following link for the podcast.

“You don’t have to spend a lot of money to do something creative and make it look nice,” says Dan Glasser, co-owner of Stray Vintage and gift store on Skillman Avenue. When he and his wife Tara decided to open Stray three years ago, they painted diamonds on the floor, gave the store a new paint coat and focused on the originality of the items they were going to sell.

Right now the couple adores vintage barware and modern Danish furniture but their taste as well as the store’s selection changes frequently. Next to clothes, jewelry, furniture, needlepoint art and vinyl, Stray sells self-made glass and mirror objects and T-shirts praising Sunnyside. (“The best neighborhood in world. Period,” Dan says.)

While Stray has been received very well, the traffic on Skillman Avenue during the week leaves a lot to be desired. Dan attributes this challenge to a hesitance of investors and a negligence of storeowners who fail to put love into their business. On the weekends, however, people come from all over New York to hunt for vintage goods at the store, which has been reviewed in the New York Times, the Queens Chronicle and am New York.

“You are buying something that has been owned. It has a history,” Dan says about his love for original vintage items. “That’s kind of nice.” In the podcast he talks about the couple’s “best days on the road,” their addiction to the hunt and one of their most remarkable finds: a 1958 pram in exquisite condition, “a Cadillac of a baby carriage.”

Mandy is the owner of Sunnyside Nail Spa on 43rd Avenue, where I sometimes get my fingernails done. When I first moved to Sunnyside, I was thrilled to have finally found a manicurist sensitive and polite enough to not comment on my nervous nail picking habits.

 Mandy immigrated from China in 2000. She first took some English classes in Boston, but Boston, she says laughing, was far too boring. Chinese newspapers, restaurants and friends were hard to find. When she was told that New York was far more exciting, Mandy didn’t hesitate and moved. She worked at several nail salons in Manhattan before opening up her own spa five years ago. Her friend, the tailor next door, recommended Sunnyside to her as a good place for business.

 Mandy’s customers are from Romania, Turkey, England and Latin America. They are like family to her. Many have been with her from the very beginning and talk to her about their children and their hobbies. She likes those customers the best who are polite and patient when she is busy, but understands that some people don’t have much time to wait.

 In the wee hours of the morning, Mandy often gets up and goes online. Sometimes she tries to find cures for nail fungus and other problems she encounters on the job; at other times she researches new products. One of her latest discoveries is a nail polish that manicurists can use even on their own nails. It doesn’t chip or dissolve when it comes in touch with nail files or polish remover. A manicure with this special polish costs $10, as opposed to one with the regular polish, which costs $6.

 Mandy lives on Long Island but spends more time in Sunnyside than at home. She sometimes buys lunch at the Natural Tofu Restaurant on Queens Boulevard, where she knows what to order. She doesn’t like to go to other restaurants in Sunnyside because she can’t read the menu and is too embarrassed to ask for help.    

 Although she is 52, with a 26-year-old daughter, Mandy looks like she is in her late thirties. When I voice surprise about her age, she tells me that she has many wrinkles, often feels old and sleeps poorly at night. Why she has problems sleeping, she doesn’t know. She never worries about, or plans, for the future. She trusts strangers easily – her friends say too easily – and just lives life from one day to the next.    

 In the audio piece Mandy tells us that a German friend who thought her original name – Mou Manrong – was too hard to pronounce, chose an American name for her.

 For the audio, click twice on this link:  Sunnyside_Mandy_name.R

I spoke to Yousafi Jan Ali while a mechanic was repairing his Kebab cart under the 46th Street subway station (listen to podcast below). Loud traffic and subway noise enveloped us. The 37-year-old introduced himself as Ali with a broad, but utterly shy smile. He admitted his fear that his English might not be good enough for an audio interview.

Ali, his wife, parents and three children fled Afghanistan in 2002. After the Taliban killed his cousin, his cousin’s family and some of his friends, he didn’t feel safe anymore in his native country.

Ali prefers to live in Long Island, but likes Sunnyside. He despises the winter when he is exposed to the freezing cold and dampness.  One year ago, when Ali started working in Sunnyside, his business was good. Over the last six months, though, it has dwindled. His clients, he says, are nice, working people. Only once on a weekend did he call 911, when two drunk customers refused to pay. The thieves escaped into the subway station and the police never showed up. Undeterred, Ali waves this episode off.

“I love America,” he says. “Americans are good people. They know that we are not terrorists. We are here with family. We are coming here to save our lives.”

Please Click Twice on the following  podcast: Ali_final12162009

For her first profile, she spoke to Pastor Neil Margetson who was installed as the minister of Sunnyside Reformed Church on the corner of Skillman Avenue and 48th Street on March 22, 2009.

At age 58, this is Pastor Neil’s first ministry. Having been raised in a household where he never went to church or read the Bible, he studied Anthropology at Columbia University. He looks back on a long career as a research analyst, including a position at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. He discloses that he encountered some problems in his life but was rescued by “divine intervention” and, as a result, turned to ministry.

“One of the things that surprised me most about active ministry is the number of people who use their minister for therapy,” the pastor says. “There seems to be a desire, a hunger to have somebody to talk to when you feel overwhelmed, who is not going to be overwhelmed by what you have to say.” He encounters much “ennui” and discouragement due to unemployment among young people. Some 20-somethings, he says, are caught up in a web of drugs and petty crime.

Many of his 45 active and committed members who help finance the church want to see new faces. Paradoxically, though, they also want the church to remain the same. “But you are never going to bring in new people unless you make changes,” Pastor Neil expresses the dilemma.

To listen to the podcast with Pastor Neil Margetson click on “Pastor Neil Podcast” link.

Pastor Neil Podcast

Pastor Neil Margetson