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<table border="0" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1" width="100%" class="forumline"> <tr> <th class="thCornerL" width="22%" height="26">Author</th> <th class="thCornerR">Message</th> </tr> <tr> <td width="22%" align="left" valign="top" class="row1"><span class="name"><a name=""></a><b>NYT</b></span></td> <td class="row1" height="28" valign="top"><table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"> <tr> <td width="100%"><img src="templates/subSilver/images/icon_minipost.gif" width="12" height="9" alt="Post" title="Post" border="0" /><span class="postdetails">Posted: Thu, Nov 20 2008, 7:02 pm EST<span class="gen"> </span> Post subject: ‘Shine ’Em Up?’ More Often Now, the Answer Is No</span></td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="2"><hr /></td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="2"><span class="postbody">An interesting article about the shoeshine business in Grand Central Terminal: <br /> <br /><img src="http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/11/20/nyregion/21bigcity-600.jpg" border="0" /> <br /> <br />‘Shine ’Em Up?’ More Often Now, the Answer Is No <br /> <br />By SUSAN DOMINUS <br />Published: November 20, 2008 <br /> <br />Professional men have their own version of the manicure, the hair coloring and the other grooming rituals that demand so much time from the confident, competent-looking businesswoman. It’s the shoeshine, a fussy rite that most women only occasionally indulge in, while many men regularly do. <br /> <br />The five shoeshine stands in Grand Central Terminal alone, with their stately mahogany leather and cherry wood chairs, normally polish the shoes of some 700 customers a day, the vast majority of them businessmen. <br /> <br />These days, says Eddie Ardaix, the owner of all five, make that 600. “The past two, three months, we’re down 100 shoeshines a day,” he said this week from behind the counter of his shoe-repair business at one of the stands, near Track 40. <br /> <br />Since he took over the business in 1999, he’s never seen anything like it, he said. Some customers have stopped coming altogether; even the fanatics, the customers who used to get their shoes shined five days a week, have dropped down to three. <br /> <br />Customers who never failed to get a shine after they had Mr. Ardaix or one of his employees repair the taps on the bottom of their shoes (for some men, a twice-monthly bit of upkeep) are putting the shoes back on and hitting the road, shine-free. <br /> <br />“They tell me, ‘maybe tomorrow,’ ” says Mr. Ardaix, 49. “The ones who said yes every day, now it’s one day yes, one day no.” <br /> <br />It says one thing about the psychology of a city when its freelance illustrators and preschool teachers and computer programmers start cutting back, en masse, on their $7-a-day Starbucks habits. It’s another when those masters of the universe — the bankers, the real estate wheelers and dealers, the crowd of the shiny-shoed, the ones you see sitting back and leafing through the Wall Street Journal as someone buffs the Prada loafers still on their feet — are watching every $4 they take out of their wallet. <br /> <br />In the now-replete body of journalism on how the wealthy are responding to the crisis, the Wall Street crowd usually talks about forgoing the summer-house kitchen renovation or the annual trip to St. Barts — or about how unseemly an extravagant Christmas party would seem. <br />... <br />more: <br /><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/21/nyregion/21bigcity.html?_r=1&hp" target="_blank">http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/21/nyregion/21bigcity.html?_r=1&hp</a></span></td> </tr> </table></td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="2" height="1" class="spaceRow"><img src="templates/subSilver/images/spacer.gif" alt="" width="1" height="1" /></td> </tr> </table>
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