Before I Met Sandy

The New 5 & 10

Oct. 27, 1949. Mayor Tuck cutting the ribbon to open The New 5 &  10 in Lindenhurst.		Dad and Lindenhurst officials at the store opening. This was a big deal in town, and all of the officials came out for the opening!
While I was in the army, the lease was running out on the Stanley Store, and dad intended to renew. However, Joe Holtzman, his best friend, who owned the Stevens Shop, the other store in the building, secretly bought the building so that he could expand his store. Dad was furious when he found out, and remained furious, but he had to leave the building. He decided to go back into the 5 & 10 cent store business and decided that Lindenhurst would be a good location. There was one there, on the north side of the tracks, small, dark and not very well run. There was an empty lot on the south side, so dad had the landlord build a building. The New 5 & 10 in Lindenhurst, NY opened Oct. 27, 1949 and was an immediate success. I started working there, at $35 a week, after I was discharged from the army.This was my daytime and 2 evenings a week home until 1956 when we opened a store in Huntington Station, NY. Mom did the books, worked on the floor and handled some notions and soft goods. I ran cosmetics, toys, some hardware and housewares, candy, photo and some sewing notions. By 1953, mom retired and I took over her departments and did the books. In 1951, we took in over $200,000, with an average sale of 77 cents. About 90% of the items were $1 or less, and there was almost nothing over $2.		The store opened with no over-counter racks. You could look over the whole store from any spot. As business increased, selection expanded, we put shelves over the counters until, by 1952, it looked like this. This is cosmetics, in the back are toys.	The other side of cosmetics and candy. There were 6 free standing counters, counters and shelves along the walls, and roll goods, window shades and hardware on the back wall. Every Christmas, we had to re-lay most of the store to free up space for Christmas merchandise.
Across the street was a parochial school, and a lot of the kids we caught shoplifting came from there. We usually called a parent who came down and took the child home, and who was never caught shoplifting again. We stopped calling the parents after one parent came running into the store, swatted her son across the face, driving his head into the corner of the counter, shouting,"I told you never to get caught!" After that, we called the police who would come, give the shoplifter a talking to, and take them home. The parochial school kids wore uniforms with green cotton socks. We sold lots of green cotton socks. The manufacturer decided to shift to nylon one-size-fits-all, and closed out the cottons. We bought hundreds of dozens of green cotton socks. The regular price was 39 cents, but we put them out for 5 for $1. We sold lots of socks with no problems until one day one of the sales girls called my father over because a customer wanted only 3 pair. He explained that 3 would be $1.17, while she could buy 5 for $1. But, she said, she didn't need 5, so she bought 3 for $1.17.		March 1952. Dad and our manager, Abe Dicker. Abe had introduced me to his niece, Sandy Hyman.