Saturday, February 19, 2000
Downtown shop closes after 95 years
Buck Kathman's shoe repair can't 'wait for the city'
BY ROBERT ANGLEN
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Buck Kathman stands behind the counter, quietly trying to explain it to his customers — struggling and failing to hide his emotions.
“We're shutting down,” he says.
“That's OK,” the customer replies, smiling. “I can come in tomorrow or Monday.”
“No, no, we're closing. This is it.”
The smile fades, realization sinks in. “Oh, no. I'm sorry.”
After nearly 95 years in downtown Cincinnati, Mr. Kathman's family's Old World-style shoe repair shop will fill its last order today. In the rain-streaked storefront on Sixth Street, a festive little sign announcing the shop's anniversary is dismantled.
“I couldn't wait for the city,” Mr. Kathman says, more than a little bitter. “They have let things go. Businesses have slowly dropped out. The city has let things become blighted. I thought I had 10 or 15 years left.”
Mr. Kathman's decision came on the same day city officials discussed a plan that would force Kathman Goodyear Shoe Repair to close and be relocated to make way for a Walgreens pharmacy. But Mr. Kathman didn't know a final decision had even been made.
“When you're not making
money, what's the point of staying open and relocating?” he says, plucking a pink tab from a customer's outstretched hand and turning toward a rack of shoes waiting for pick-ups. “For the city to talk about relocating me, it's like kicking a dog.”
The city has relocated the store two times since Mr. Kathman's grandfather opened it on Fifth and Race streets.
Mr. Kathman says making the decision to close was the second-hardest thing he's had to do. The first was telling employees like Janet Renken, who has worked for his family for 20 years.
“I am going to miss this,” she says, hands deep in apron pockets. “This is more like family than friends. Even the customers, I know most by name.”
She also questions the city's compassion for small businesses, saying officials have offered no help.
“They don't care unless you're a big company — or a drugstore,” she says, her cherubic face crinkling with a sob. “I guess now I'll go on disability until I find something else.”
Something else won't come easy for Mr. Kathman, who is now 55 and started working in the original Kathman's when he was 12 years old.
“I guess I'll have to find a job,” he says. “This isn't work, it's fun. It's always been play. The work is what I do when I go home.”
He says a lot of the fun comes from plying a trade forgotten to many, but still important to the customers who make their way in from the suburbs — or used to when there was parking available and construction didn't clog the freeways.
“We do something that not very many people do any more,” he says, gesturing to green chairs in a store now filled only with the smells of oils and leathers. “Now I guess people will just buy shoes and throw them away.”
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