Downtown
June 1, 2014 § 2 Comments
Growing up my dad called women that wore shoes like these, sidewalk stewardesses. As a child I wasn’t very savvy, so when he’d spot one I would always look for a stewardess in uniform.
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Pearl River Mart
May 31, 2014 § 2 Comments
Pearl River Mart is one of my favorite stores in Manhattan. It’s located on Broadway between Grand Street and Spring Street and you can find just about anything there from a violin to a bar of soap.
Pearl River Mart Website
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CONVERSE
May 29, 2014 § 8 Comments
The Converse Rubber Shoe Company was founded in 1908. In 1917 they created a shoe called the All Star and in 1921, basketball player Charles “Chuck” Taylor joined a basketball team sponsored by Converse — The Converse All Stars. Taylor became a salesman for the company and made improvements to the shoe.
These days Converse appears to be a style choice.
…and Nike dominates the neighborhood basketball courts.
Ironic.
Photo: Arthur Rothstein, Sept. 1935
Sneakers: Where Can’t They Go? – New York Times
Converse.com
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Arthur L. Benjamin
May 24, 2014 § 18 Comments
Memorial Day is a time I think of my dad, Arthur L. Benjamin. Growing up I sometimes wished for a younger dad, but never a different one. Since I started this blog I’ve learned some new things about him. I always knew he went into selling shoes because he loved people and loved to travel, but I didn’t know that he had worked as a shoe designer and stylist for Minnehaha Moccasins (a contemporary of Minnetonka) and Golo Footwear. Before entering into the family business he also loved photography and in WWII worked as a photographer for the Army. He entertained us with his Army stories and we were in awe. Stories about following Patton around in a jeep and dinners with King Farouk.
He told us he had enough experience for a lifetime in those 4 years. The government kept his negatives, but he made his own prints and they were kept in his green Army photo boxes up in our hall closet. The Yalta conference and the great pyramids. He was about to be sent back to the states to teach photo intelligence when he visited Cairo on R&R. When he saw the way the army was living there, the hotel they had taken over, the villas and suffrages he decided that’s where he wanted to be. Some things though were hard to get him to talk about, like being one of the first people allowed into Dachau after it was liberated because he was Jewish. He still remembered some Arabic and used it whenever he had the chance. My grandfather told us a story about how my grandmother knew where he was when she recognized the back of him taking a picture in a photo in The New York Times.
Photo: Arthur L. Benjamin
Photo: Arthur L. Benjamin
Photo: Arthur L. Benjamin
Photo: Arthur L. Benjamin
Photo: Arthur L. Benjamin
Photo: Arthur L. Benjamin
A true Renaissance man he could play any instrument by ear and had a beautiful tenor singing voice. After the war when he lived in California he had his own radio show.
He taught us how to make pinhole cameras and when I was older he gave me his Yashica 2 ¼ which I still have.
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Model with llamas, Cusco, Peru – 1952
May 20, 2014 § Leave a comment
![Title: [Fashion model with llamas, Cusco, Peru] Creator(s): Frissell, Toni, 1907-1988, photographer Date Created/Published: [1952]](https://womensfootwearinamerica.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/3g04338r1.jpg?w=480)
FIORUCCI, NYC
May 16, 2014 § 6 Comments
Fiorucci’s was a fun, pop Italian store that closed in the late 1980’s. It was on East 59th Street. I remember it being really colorful. I loved it. I have a memory of buying a pair of jellies there.
Video: Revisiting Fiorucci’s Heyday As “The Daytime Studio 54”
Andy Warhol and Brooke Shields
WWW.Fiourcci.it
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Questions
May 14, 2014 § 8 Comments
Shoe – B. Benjamin Nov. 18th, 1938
Haunted by the tapes I made of my grandfather as a child I’ve always wanted to share his story. A few months ago when I submitted an article to Wikipedia on him it was rejected due to not being notable. Kate Gosslein and Kim Kardashian are notable, but not my grandfather? i.e. A self-made man orphaned at 12 who rose to be one of the biggest shoemen in this country. Instead of spending my time proving to Wikipedia that he is, I started this blog to try and put together the missing pieces. The answers are out there I just have to keep asking the questions.
My Dad and Grandfather.
The first place I started was a box of papers I had. It was a mess of old college letters, drawings from high school, stickers, junk, but inside all of that junk there was a manila envelope with some letters and notebooks that my grandfather must have given me I had forgotten about. They were his notebooks from when he was an apprentice in England as a boy and the letters of reference that he brought with him to America.
Each twist and turn I take is just another layer to be peeled away.
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Spring
May 12, 2014 § 2 Comments
After one of the coldest winters — finally, 2 days in a row of beautiful weather.
Phyllis A. Tweel, Gossip Columist, Soho Weekly News 1979
The High Line
Women's Footwear in America 