Frank's Bike Shop

Here is my interview with Frank of Frank's Bike Shop from the Grand Street News about 5-6 years ago. The Grand Street News is no longer published, and it's website is gone. Here is a cut and paste from the word doc, random notes mixed in....

-----

Frank Arroya Jr.

How long has this bike shop been here?

Since 1976. May 28^th, 1976. Actually I opened the doors June 5^th of 76.

What did you do before the bike shop?

I ran a bike shop up on Columbus Avenue and 82^nd Street. Actually the first shop was on 10^th street, while I was in school, part time in my high school years.

Whered you grow up?

Right here on the Lower East Side. Actually I lived on Columbia Street at first then I moved into the coops 30 years ago and have been here ever since.

Why did you move the bike shop to Grand Street?

Why not? We live right here. It was the most convenient place and actually, if you look outside, this was a bakery I remember as a kid coming in and getting the bread and the newspaper and the container of milk on Sunday mornings.I always liked the area, I always liked the store , so after I was sorry they closed up the bakery because as kids we always did like the bakery. It was closed for a while, and I decided to go into my own business, and my wife says to me, why not downstairs? And I said jeez, I don’t know, it’s a big store, I don’t know if I could make it down here because all my customers at the time were uptown at the time already, but of course all my friends and everybody else was down here. Convienence-wise, what could be more convenient than walking downstairs and across the street right into the store. It was a little scary at first. You figured at the time how many people in this area did cycle around. Uptown with Central Park and everything, but as growing up here myself down here, I cycled around all my life. People used to say, don’t you ever walk? Because again I was always on my bike.

Cycling sure is much more convient in a city neighborhood like the LES.

Sure, now more than ever, the freedom that you have being able to ride and go from here to there and everything else without wating. Unfortunately, a lot of people are hesitating on getting into public transportation lately (because of the terrorist threat – Sept 11) If you notice, folding bicycles were always a thing that we’d sell but never as many as now because nows all age groups and of course some of the more of the middle and older groups are going to the folding bikes because of the convenience of having to store them into their apartments which of course no one ever has a enough room for storage of everything.

Are you currently a Schwinn dealship?
Yes I am. I always worked in a schwinn shop but as I opened hre it took a little while to get Schwinn. At the time, Schwinn was one of these companies which they have to be able to say the store is established, see if there areany other dealerships in the area and so forth. This has all changed, everything today has become a number, not the kind of operation they had back then when it was a family-owned and operated business. Now its just a bigger conglomerate.

Schwinn is classic American business failure, arrogance of a corporate structure – you are a classic American success story.

The company itself, it took my about a year after opening up the doors here to get my dealership because I was familiar with them and they knew that like anyone in business, they have to be sure that you will be able to handle their product. At least back then. It took just, it fealt like jeez, now I’m in business, I have the dealership. It like if you become a Schwinn dealer, then you’re a real bike shop, at that time.

I see the plaques…

You had to maintain at least selling 500 bicycles a year, you also had to maintain certain standards, you would have to send a mechanic to them every year to know whats goinbg on, the latest technology on the bicycles and so forth. Actually for the first couple of years I myself went, which was quite interesting. You know you always feel like, yeah, I know everything, and there is always a little more that you can learn, whether it’s administrating the business or actually the new mechanics of what is coming into the market today. Which  unfortunately they don’t have such classes and meetings and again it also gave us a chance to get together with other dealers so that we could familiarize ourselves and know whats going on in other places.

Someone comes in for change

Rep of shop is known throughout the city, even people who ride road bikes…whose your competition?

Well, I don’t really think of anything as competition. Sometimes other business are doing,  that’s good because that means everybody is doing and there’s more of it out there. I never really concern myself with what other people are doing, I mainly try to do the best I can. Now more and more there are more shops, more bikes being produced over seas so now the quality of bicycles have improved  so much, even on children’s bikes, and department stores are selling bicycles, but they still need the service so this way no matter what I can still be able to see my customers and there is always something someone is going to come in for and get done.

Unlike cahin stores, indie stores stayed because of service. Fitting, etc.

I’m a newbie. Have you seen change since reconstitution?

Actually it has improved, as younger people, new families moving into the area and so forth. Don’t get me wrong, we miss some of our older friends but they have to enjoy life too. I guess Florida  a lot of them moved ot to and so forth. A lot of the families that these people have had, their children have remained here and now their children have children . I’m looking at some of them, jeez, third and fourth generations. I remember when grandma or somebody came in and bought the child a bicycle and now I see them all grown up, it’s nice to see them.

Funny about immigtant stories, how they moved here and then got the hell out, now it’s not like that.

We have seen families that have left the area that have come back to the area. This has become one of the more desirable areas, people never appreciated too much what we did have, people would say jezz, what’s down there. Well, we do have our playhouses, our settlement houses, as a boy I always enjoyed it, I remember the band stand down on the FDR Drive, the amphitheater when it was the old bigger building. Just being able, our parents would let us go down to the park and let us ride around and have that freedom, was great. Never had any kind of problems down here.

Seasonal. Had getting by in the winter?

It is more difficult, yes.  You have to figure that your never going to do what you do in the season but now more than ever, if you notice, of course, theres more people more than ever making stores with having delivery guys, I have messengers who come from all over the city, for those people it is their means of getting their deliveries done. Of ocurse not everyone can have a delivery vehicle and its very difficult for them. Parking and short runs wuld be impossible  to do in anything other than a bicycle to be able to get there while the food is still hot, to be able to park right away and to be able get in and out would only be done in such a manner.

Rack in front?  It’s the only one on grand street….

….and the city put it up. No I did not (request it), they cameby, they did a survey of the area apparently, and then they says their going to put a rack in the area. I says wait, you can’t put a rack without the coop’s permission, they said no, this is the city, and now I guess apparentlyh they got permission from the coop and so forth. A lot of people would say yeah, how did you get the rack? I had nothing to do with it. We could use more racks around the city.

I was with my bikein the elevator, oldtimer said bike room in basement of Hillman etc.

OK, well, yeah, they ummm, there was another thing to it. A lot of people were also storing carriages in all of these places. And unfortunately not everybody is having another child right away. So a lot of these carriages were abandoned and bicycles at the time were not quite as used as now. So when you do fill up a place and there is only so much room, things will get damaged and then unfortunately those other people that believe something is abandoned will take parts off of it and then someone will say somebody stole or, then vandalism becomes at that point, well, they’re stealing everything off my bike. It’s a combination of two things, neglect of people taking care of their things, and then again, feeling that everything is safe everywhere. You still have to lock it up, you still have ti make sure …and of course if the coops would have an area…

Amalgamated…

Yeah of course….that’s something that even in the city housing projects they had something that were called premolator rooms, storage rooms, but again, same problem., same problem

Ex officer, still cycles and runs, still enjoys it….

Speaking of retirement, you’ve been here 28 years…obviously you like it. Last month interviewed ruby, rebuilding kicked out, I’m 78, want TO WORK when your 78? Do you?

I wish I could! You know there is always something to do, so why not do something you like doing. What you feel you could be good at doing. You know I have an older gentleman, he comes around and helps me out, Bob, he’s been retired but he likes the business, he’s 71 yearws old and he comes around because helices to deal with people, he likes to feel mechanically, he likes to see what he can do, he comes like, at what age would an artist stop painting? If you could do it and he enjoys doing it, sure. I’m sure I’d want to spend more time personally for myself and, y’know….

How much time do you spend in the shop every week?

I don’t know, I don’t even put time to to it. I could be here from 9 in the morning till 7, I could be here from 9 to 10. Depends on what commitments I make and if I have to do something other than to finish what I have to do fro the day, theres always something else you gotta do tomorrow, always something else.

How many people do you employ?

Wel it depends on the time of the year. It varies anywhere from 2 to 4.

Lease with coop?

The last lease we had was an 8 years lease. You know, they’ve been very understanding and good to me. I have no, I like it here, as long as I can be here I’ll be here.

Newbies cause change, but we don’t want it to change.

Comments stories?

If you look at the sign out side, it was meant to be. Before the awning and everything, every one was saying, that’s why you opened up here. It said “BAKE SHOP”.  I only had to change one letter on the sign at the time when I couldn’t afford to get a sign.  So when I opened the store and wanted to put a sign, I looked at the sign, ans said, jeez….just changed the one letter and it said bike shop. And that was the funny part about when we first opened up here.

I enlisted into the Coast Guard and then I got married and had a son, so they put me down for emergency service. I just served my boot camp and that was the time I did leave (the bike biz), I just had to attend meetings and fortunately at the time they didn’t need me that bad. They did take my brother right away and got shot up in Nam, came back home and still with the service, in a sense. My father was hit twice, too, WWII. My brother was hit, my father was hit, fortunately my son came home with the flag, Michael, that was last year during the Iraq crisis. 

Father in WWII, brother in Vietnam, had family so saw service with Coast Guard. Family served recently in Iraq