Thursday, March 30, 2000
Downtown loses a bit of sole
Shoe repair shop displaced by 'progress'
BY LISA BIANK FASIG
The Cincinnati Enquirer
In the end, 95 years of family tradition faded away to the bittersweet song of an auctioneer's pleas and some bids that ran lower than the cost of a good reheeling.
Kathman's Shoe Repair, a small business that fed three generations of family and revived thousands of pairs of shoes, sold off its remaining equipment and memorabilia Wednesday in a 21/2-hour auction.
Owner Buck Kathman, 55, closed the downtown store at Sixth and Race streets on Feb. 29 after sustaining years of declining sales. He made his decision the day the city said it would pay $3.7 million to relocate a Walgreens drugstore to Sixth and Race, displacing his and several other small businesses.
“It's like the end of a very, very long tradition. It's sad,” Mr. Kathman said from outside the store where he worked since age 12. “But then again, it stops the bleeding.”
Mr. Kathman said relocating was not financially feasible. He said the city told him in February that he could get up to $10,000 for relocation and $10,000 for set-up, but he could not find an affordable address, and the costs would run higher.
The stretch of West Sixth Street where Kathman's operated is occupied by low-glitz, small, independent retailers — the kinds that define a commu nity but are being replaced by chain stores nationwide. Across the street is a hole where the Fifth and Race Tower once stood, and on the wall erected to keep trespassers from the construction it reads: “Making Way for Progess.”
In a letter to City Council dated Feb. 22, City Manager John Shirey called Kathman's “an institution” and said the staff would continue working with him “should he reconsider his decision.”
But that isn't likely.
Inside Kathman's, a small group of bearded and capped bidders shuffled to the back work area, where old shoe stretchers and stitchers, buffers and polishers stood. Auctioneer Brent Semple of Semple & Associates filled his lungs with air.
“I have five sections, five sections of steel shelves ... SIX sections! Buy the piece times six! A dollar bill per section ... Two dollars times six, buyer No. 1-4-6!”
“I bought some signs, a bunch of shoe-stretchers, some clamps, some shoe sizers, some hole punchers,” said Michael Hansen, who is in town from St. Paul, Minn., doing work for the Playhouse in the Park's A Little Night Music. “None of it will go to scrap. I can't stand that idea.”
Bob Haley, president of Semple & Associates, said notice of the auction went to shoe stores in three states. Still, most of the bidders were from Cincinnati.
Bidders included Michael Angelo Testa, a fellow auctioneer from Forest Park who successfully bid $175 for Kathman's 5-foot outdoor shoe sign. “My grandfather a long time ago used to bring his shoes here,” Mr. Testa said. “It's really hard to get this kind of stuff, and when you come to an auction, it's really the only place.”
As the auction wore on, so did Buck Kathman, who affectionately described the pieces of equipment he had handled for decades — ink pots for edging the shoes; burnishers to work the color in. It would be gone in a few days.
The elder Mr. Kathman said he'll look for a job at a hardware store. “I always wanted to do that,” he said.
Buck Kathman, who had spent some time teaching and working in an ad agency, doesn't know what he'll do next. “We used the best products, we had the best craftspeople we could find,” he said. “It's the only thing I've thought of for about the past four weeks.”
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