What I Remember (6): Greek Island Ltd.

This was written by my father, George, recalling his life, in 1993, and includes a memoir from 2006.

WHAT I
REMEMBER
George Soter’s Memories (1993, 2006)

MARLON BRANDO'S FIANCEE'S DRESSES
and Other Greek Island Adventures

I was fired from my job at the advertising agency on Valentine's Day, 1962. I quipped at the time that it was my personal St. Valentine's Day Massacre, a quip I deemed particularly appropriate since the agency's headquarters was located in Chicago even though I worked in the New York office. I was secure and as happy in my job as any intelligent person working in an advertising agency ever is. The continued well-being of my wife Effie, my three young sons and a ten-room apartment om Riverside Drive all depended on that job. My own well-being for the next three decades was a direct result of that firing for as I soon learned my true metier was not copywriting, slogan inventing, nor market strategizing but was, alas, shopkeeping.

June 1985. After twenty-two years of merchant playing we finally decided the game, still fascinating, still all-consuming, had come to its end. After a month-long Goodbye We Are Going Out of Business Sales, on a clear, bright day that seemed to mimic the clarity of a Greek sky, we loaded up the unsold rugs, the odds and ends of clothing, the boxes of jewelry, ceramics, cushions, bedspreads, Greek-themed books, Greek records and the once lovingly displayed tagaria, brikia, birbiles, hramia, ikones, tamata, sendonia, kombologia and kandilia that had been our unique stock in Manhattan trade; we swept up and vacuumed one last time; and then we closed the doors of Greek Island Ltd. forever.

Everything neat and tidy. The decision to close up had been as wrenching as any divorce. We tried to concentrate on the waves of relief: no more ever-escalating rent to deal with, no more this tax, that tax and oh-my-God-here's-another-one tax to pay, no more income-outgo imbalances waking you in the middle of the night and keeping you awake till dawn, no more shipments and custom brokers and truckers to worry over, no more shoplifters to eagle eye, no more Greek suppliers to cajole and cultivate. But overwhelming the waves of relief, were waves after waves--a tsunami--of rue: no more the daily thrill of anticipation, the ever-recurring great expectations that are the shopkeeper's lifeblood, no more encounters with our familiar public nor with our very own--sometimes entertaining-- crazies, no more celebrities of stage, screen, literature and politics to chat with and to be suitably awed by or, sometimes, disdainful of, no more frenzied family shopping-trip holidays in Greece that were so much more fun than your ordinary see-the-sights-and-lay-on-the-beach holiday, no more adventures in buying, pricing and displaying, no more encounters with affable potters, weavers, and smiling wily merchants in Greece, no more fifty-two weeks per year obsession, no more daily raison d'etre, in short, no more shop. Relief, sure. But enough regrets to last a lifetime and to give birth to recurring dreams of denial.

1973. If, at any time during the '60s, '70s and early '80s, you were a New York shop collector (you know who you are--not only did you know the big-name department or chain stores and the fashion-name boutiques, but you also knew exactly where to go to find a shop that specialized in buttons, another where most of the stock consisted of animal bones--including homo sapiens, or tusk after tusk of Eskimo art, or where to find that place that had shelves and aisles loaded with homely restaurant supplies--pots, pans, colanders, bain meries and a bowl and ladle for every conceivable mixture or potage du jour, then you probably had bought something at, or undoubtedly had heard of, our shop, Greek Island Ltd. Not only New York shop collectors, but members of the breed from all over the country and even all over the world eventually had our number, thanks to the editors and stylists and art directors of Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker and even Playboy and Penthouse who kept discovering us and who would feature a Greek Island Ltd. crucifix, a worrybead, a knit fisherman's hat, wine bottle or striped bedsheet caftan in their editorial pages. But even if you weren't a shop collector but just happened to be a simple Grecophile, thanks, say, to some past holiday or some nostalgically remembered school course or teacher, then too, you probably knew of us and eventually found your way to our East 49th Street door.

And then there were also legions of you out there who had read or heard about us (shortly after we opened in 1963, The New York Times reported "Four Moonlighting Couples Open Greek Shop in Amster Yard") and The original partners in Greek Island.wanted specifically to find out how we did it and how you could make your shop dream come true. If England had once been a nation of shopkeepers, very often it seemed to us that America in the late twentieth century had now become a nation of shopkeeper-wannabe's. That old classic escape hatch from the 9-to-5 rat race, "a little chicken farm of our own in the country", was now "a little shop of our own in the city." The great American middle class Let's Go Shopping phenomenon was not only a primary American entertainment activity, it was also a pervasive force in the socio-psychic life of very large numbers of people. What you bought, where you shopped, how you critiqued stores, clerks, prices, values were all seen as basic character defining activities. How you dressed, how you decorated your home, how you chose gifts were not only an increasingly important part of your life--alas, for many people, they were your lifer not so surprising, then, that more and more people were enticed by the thought of entering the core of the shopping experience, and that core, shopkeeping itself, seemed a logical and seductive goal. I know all this because I was one of those Let's Go Shopping junkies. And nothing fed my cravings as fully and as happily as living the life of a shopkeeper.

It was well past midnight and Effie was far from through with shortening the voluminous skirt of Marlon Brando's fiancee’s Benaki Museum dress. There were dozens of pleats and close to a hundred bone buttons on the shirtwaist front; the fabric was a coarse lineny cotton that brought to mind an old-time railroad worker's pinstriped overalls and was not easy to work with; and there were still other dresses, skirts and blouses to be altered, shortened and fussed with. Across Manhattan, in far-off Brooklyn, Mrs. Theodore, our full-time clerk and part-time seamstress, was working on another batch of alterations for the same person. Everything had to be finished, ironedThe original partners in Greek Island reunite at George's 80th birthday party in 2004.

and ready for the 10 AM opening of our shop the next day. That's when Marlon Brando's fiancee was stopping by, on the way to the airport, to pick everything up.

The afternoon before, on a sweet and sunny June day, she had walked into our then well-known Greek Island Ltd. shop and, after a professional-like survey of its three rooms of merchandise, had started piling small heaps of her selections on chairs and tables. As the afternoon waned, the heaps kept growing larger. All the while, her continuous, whispered, monologue of revelations, served up the details of her romance with Marlon, her plans with Marlon, her rendezvous with Marlon the next day in Cannes, and their wedding the following day.

Even though by now--in our tenth year of business--we had dealt with many odd customers and with many a celebrity customer (very often they were one and the same), this afternoon-long shopping confessional was unique. Was she a phoney? Some kind of nut? Or just plain Marlon Brando's fiancee? The moment of truth might be revealed at the moment of paying her bill. At some point during the marathon trying on of dresses, skirts, blouses, jackets--even a bikini--and the alteration-to-be pinnings and the continuous adding to the piles ("This hat would be perfect for Marlon's son...", "I love this stole...just the thing for Ingrid, my masseuse..."), Effie called me at my office (I worked in an advertising agency).

It was not unusual for her to let me know if something special had happened in the shop, or was even going on as we talked. A large sale, a thwarted shoplifter, a favorite movie star on the premises ("...one of the Andrews sisters is here...", "...Mrs. Theodore caught that transvestite shoplifter...") would get her to the phone even though as a rule, Effie hated the phone. She wanted to make sure that I planned to stop by the shop after work, not only to check out Marlon Brando's fiancee but particularly because she was worried that neither she, nor Mrs. Theodore, nor even Irma Smith, our other and most street-smart clerk, would know how to handle the hefty sale (it now looked like it was going to add up to several thousands of dollars, she reported). If Marlon Brando's fiancee tried to give them a personal check, as they feared, how should they handle it?

Well, if cold cash was any indication (and of course, it often is not), this was not a scam. Marlon Brando's fiancee counted out the crisp new hundreds and settled her hefty bill in cash. And we, casting aside doubts and suspicions embarked on a night of race-against-the-clock alterations.

How did we get into this? I asked myself. What were we doing? Other people like us were living normal lives. Eating out, enjoying--or worrying about--their kids, falling asleep in front of the TV, and all that. Rut here we were, in our Riverside Drive sweatshop in the wee hours, slaving away. How did we get into this?

Greek Island in the 1960s.

Our spacious bedroom--with two-direction Hudson River views, in our old-fashioned (but getting to be high fashion--the New York Times magazine had published photos of the place, "Gotham Greek," they called it) upper West Side of Manhattan apartment¬-- was in messy upheaval. Hundreds of books on book shelves lining one wall and a massive Victorian bed (suitable for death scenes in horror movies, our middle son who loved horror movies had said when he first saw it) had once dominated the room.

That was in the days when it had merely been a normal combination bedroom, den and ad hoc family room (the major TV was located here). Now, self-transformed by the past ten years of our unbridled retail obsession, it had become a Dickensian bookkeeping-accountant's office joined to a Balzacian sewing-room atelier. Yes, we still continued to sleep in this jumbled realm of sales receipts, bills receivable and bills payable, daily ledgers, piles of correspondence from nooks and crannies in Greece and America and amorphous mounds of fabrics, findings, threads and miscellaneous Singer and folkloric detrita. The question--how did we get into this?--is, of course, rhetorical. And it's what this book is all about.

But here, in this now-funny room, the question arose again, as it had very often during the past ten years, as it was to do for the next ten. And as it still does, ten years after we sold our last tagari bag. All this frantic wee-hour celebrity-haloed hustle-bustle wasn't quite the way we had planned our shop-keeping adventure. The truth is many things about our Greek Island Ltd. shop hadn't turned out as planned, mostly because, the further truth is, we really hadn't planned very much. Did we have, as political commentators have taught us to ask, a vision? Of course. Never fully articulated, nor fully discussed. But it was there in everything we did. As for planning, it was of the most primitive dollars-and-cents kind, like that of most virgin (and some not so virgin) shop openers. The planning was more what you would call wishful thinking.

Twenty years later, after twenty years of constantly alternating highs and lows, after twenty years of days of money-troubled exhaustion that were often topped with moments of sweet exhilaration, I could ask myself, "Isn't this how all failed businesses get started?” And retort smartly to myself, "And many a successful one, too." As things turned out, we were one of those classic heartbreakers--a "success" that failed. Or, if you will, a "failure" that was a kind of success. As American as apple pie. We made ours with a recipe for moussaka.

And yet it was the hope-engendering, lottery-winning-like moments that flitted through the night of Marlon Brando's fiancee's dresses that made running an "interesting" shop in New York the kind of adventure it truly was. It's probably the same element of surprise--what will happen tomorrow? who will walk in the next minute and save the day?--that is the heart and soul of retailing and that kept us happily (most of the time) doing it for well over twenty years. Time-consuming, obsessive, heartbreaking, heart-warming, thrilling, depressing, exciting, stressful, constraining, insoluble, and most often, liberating--all these things, yes. But the best part was that daily unpredictability. Just like life. Just like a day at the races. Just like the Marx Brothers. "More happens in a minute," Vienoula once quoted an old Greek parable, "than happens in a year." She was referring to an accident and a broken limb. But for me, it was the philosophical key note, the daily incentive for shopkeeping.

For the moment though, it was race-against-the-clock drudgery. Now it's, close to 2 am and here we are, nursing along the hems of Marlon Brando's fiancee's trousseau.

February 1962. How did it all get started? Fingering the exact starting point of anything is a Proustean task with a whole skein of intertwined and hopelessly jumbled strands: Growing Up Greek-American in Depression Chicago; Coming of Age in the World of World War II; Wishing I Was Jewish; the Two-thousand Year Long Seductiveness of Greece and Greeks (cf. Pliny, Keats, Byron, Melina Mercouri, Telly Savalas and your local corner Greek coffee shop); Chicago's Marshall Field Department Store as a Depression Attraction and Haven; The High Salary Levels and High Boringness Quotient of Working in (what used to be called) Madison Avenue; the (now immediately recognizable) '60s Syndrome (which nobody in the '60s had ever heard of but which is now the too-often used shorthand to signal a cultural turning point that everybody in subsequent decades--looking for the answer to when did things go wrong?or, when were things still right?--recognizes); Aesthetic Hubris (which convinces you that you, you alone?, can search out, discover, promote beauty with a capital B in the most unlikely places). All these Chapter Headings--and countless others, some undoubtedly deeper and possibly more revealing--could be a separate and totally logical beginning for our shop story. In a way they were all there in the beginning.

But the real, let's-stick-to-the-facts-m'am, genesis was in the summer of 1962, the year of my first wide-eyed, intoxicating, psyche-invading, obsession-creating and summer-long visit to Greece.

In February, I had just been surprisingly fired from what I thought was my secure, successful advertising agency job as the creative director of the New York office of an absolutely secure and successful Chicago agency. I was 38 years old. Next to the job, my life revolved almost routinely around my wife Effie, our home, our three young sons. With no job and not much in savings these were all things to worry about seriously.

The firing (as it usually does for most people) attacked my pride as much as it did my pocketbook--maybe more. It was, as is the wont of firings, my very own not-so-private disaster, the trauma whose scars, alas, can still be felt thirty years later. But, I convinced myself and then, somewhat harder to do, I convinced Effie, that this disaster was also a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

Early magazine article about the shop."Let's take the kids and sail to Greece for the summer--" actually sail not fly on one of those Greyhounds-in-the-sky that were then democratizing the world of travel. My arguments? We were young, I had good credentials and surely I'd find a job easily once the Spring and Summer Hiring Doldrums (which quickly become the Fall and Winter Hiring Doldrums, depending on your own ,particular Season of Unemployment) were over; we'd never have this kind of block of time again; wouldn't Effie, who had grown up in Athens and hadn't been there for twenty years, love to re-visit her homeland (the answer was a resounding "no!"); and "Listen, Ef, I'm really depressed and it will do us all good to get away from it all." My arguments finally worked and a few months later Effie and I and eight year old

Nick, six-year old Tom and eighteen-month-old Peter boarded the Queen Frederika for the fourteen day (!) voyage to Piraeus that was everything a fairy tale voyage should be. And I was right about one thing, we never had another block of time like that; and sadly, a few years later, even if we had had the time, all those noveletish floating hotels to Greece and to most of Europe were gone forever. In addition to all the conventional, cliche things that then were newly heralding the touristic appeal of Greece--the sunny climate, the unspeakably famous ruins, the intimidating past, the foxy, attractive people, that music, those tavernas, all of that Never on Sunday stuff--the most striking thing was that Greece in 1962 was a living, breathing, startling time capsule, circa 1937.

It was an immediately appealing, if not immediately identifiable, cultural-and-time warp sandwich. Large parts of pre-War Europe recognizable from pre-War movies--particularly French ones--seemed to be helterskelter layered with slabs of North Africa--also recognizable from Pepe Le Moko, Humphrey Bogart and Joseph von Sternberg's sightings. The daily streets and the local daily lives were redolent with wafts of the long-disappeared bourgeois and rural France that was the natural patrimony of every foreign movie buff like me. Just being in Greece then had an extra other-dimension headiness about it that went beyond the everyday, normal headiness that being in Greece still provokes.

While breathing in and assimilating this strange half-real, half-old movie and totalling ingratiating world, we also did all the right tourist things. We climbed to the Acropolis (again and again since it somehow captured the imagination of our sons, and they welcomed it as a kind of adventurous outing) and trudged. through Delphi and Epidaurus, Olympia and Mycaenae. We even got to then-sleepy, almost-undiscovered Mykonos and the Italian-ceded Rhodes of which Greeks were inordinately proud then because of all the imposing Mussolini-era public buildings anchored in the center of town.

And we did all the right Greek-American things, too. We were discovered, cried over, doted on and thoroughly embraced by black-clad aunts, wise and witty uncles, instantly and warmly accepted, nay, hero-worshipped, by filial cousins; and we visited the parental village birthplaces in the Peloponnese; ate, drank, sang, danced and felt, at last, "back home" where the baklava, the pastichio, the tsamiko and the syrto were not exotic minority delicacies, but every-day, supernormal occurrences. In and around Athens, there were days of taking off with the boys to explore the seemingly endless glorious ruins. Then, languid afternoons at the surprisingly nearby and soothingly seductive beaches. And always, eye-fillings walks on the fascinating by-ways and side streets of the city invariably and unjustly maligned by travel writers. As true red-blooded American tourists, we also took time to survey the shopping possibilities.

The shops in Greece then--as they continue to be to this day--were bloated with every kind of cheap tourist-aimed junk particularly if it offered some surface on which "hand painted" Acropolises, dancing evzones and vaguely ethnic-costumed maidens or smiling warrior Athenas and armless Aphrodites could be displayed, preferably all at once. The era of Zolotas and Lalaounis and the "great buys in gold jewelry" had not yet made a Greek Island cruise, the equivalent of an expensive jewelry bargain basement that it has since become. But across from the Hotel Grand Bretagne, there was a shop in which everything was different. No Acropolises, handpainted or otherwise, in fact, no fake antiquities of any kind. Just surprisingly adept variations on handcraft techniques with sophisticated styling and colors. There were finely worked needlepoint rugs and cushions that used motifs from folk embroidery; handwoven jackets, skirts and fabrics that married traditional skills with a contemporary sense of style; well designed hand-hammered copperware and delicately painted ceramics. This paragon of shops in the Acropolis-littered desert of tourist traps was popularly known by Athenians as "the Queen's shop." (This was in reference to the then Monarch, Queen Frederika, and was, in those blithely innocent times, not intended as a reference to any kind of more private orientation.)

The official title of the organization that supplied and operated this shop was "Vassiliki Pronoia" which had been translated into English as "Their Majesties' Fund" (post-monarchy, it became "Koinonike Pronoia", The National Welfare Fund.) Begun shortly after World War II, with the objective of supporting and promoting native Greek handcrafts, its activities extended to regions throughout Greece, supplying projects and work for the perennially depressed agricultural villages and rural communities. The organization, directed by volunteer upper-class Athenian matrons was responsible for the design and quality control of the large variety of goods that were such a startling exception to what was being done on the commercial level. Their retail outlet--the shop across from the Grand Bretagne--quickly became for us a personal discovery as well as a handy rendezvous point.

Opening announcement for the shop."Why not," I thought, one day, "why not get them to bring their goods"---the needlepoint rugs, for instance, seemed a perfect product--"to New York City." In those days, I had often shopped at folk-oriented shops in Manhattan. The Poles had their Cepelia shop on East 57th Street, there was the elegant Soma shop with Indian crafts, a few blocks from there and the Hermna Miller-Alexander Girard Textiles and objects shop on East 53rd Street was a handcraft museum of a shop long before there were real museum shops crowded into the lobby floors of every museum in the world. The appeal of handcrafts and folk art was on an ascendant curve--only natural in a world increasingly clothed, furnished and decorated with mass manufactured goods. The time seemed right to my amateur's eye for "the Queen's shop" to invade Manhattan.

When I met with the directors of the Fund and offered to help them do just that, they seemed suspicious of my proffered suggestion that I was ready, willing, somewhat able and also--in what I intended as a Gary-Cooperish flaunt of altruism--volunteering my services on a non-remunerative, not-for-profit basis. The last, of course was probably what made the endemically mercantile Greeks suspicious--What's up his sleeve? What is he hoping to gain? Who is he fooling?--and surprisingly cool to my suggestion. On the other hand, they may simply have been responding to my less than perfect spoken Greek. At a second meeting, a few days later, they reported they regrettably had no funds for such a venture---but then suggested that I should open the shop that I had sketched out for them and they would happily supply me with goods.

Me open a shop? How silly. What did I know about running a store? My only true hands-on business experience had been with my parents series of neighborhood restaurants in Chicago and Detroit, very unlike what I had in mind. Me open a shop? How silly. Or was it?
For the next year that silly idea became a Why not? possibility. Then a Maybe? probability. Finally, a Sure Thing! certainty.

Just about then, in the middle of this once-in-a-lifetime summer-in-Greece getaway, I received a call from Curt Berrien, my former mentor at my former advertising agency. He was now at a new agency, mentoring me again with the offer of a job to start in September. So with the security of a weekly salary in my hip pocket I spent the next year fantasizing, planning and recruiting for the Greek shop in Manhattan idea.

MARLON BRANDO'S DRESSES – CONCLUDED
George never finished writing the saga of Greek Island – but he did finish telling the story of "Mrs. Marlon Brando," at a birthday party in 2000. Here's how it came out:

Now I have to tell a longish story. At some point in the ‘70s, a woman came in at Christmas time and spent a fortune and all the while she was spending all this money she kept talking about the charities she gave to, the things she did. She kept name dropping all these fancy places and we were very worried—she spent $1,000—how she was going to pay for it. So at the end she says, “I’ll pay for it by check, but you hold the check until you clear it at the bank and I’ll pick the stuff up tomorrow.” And then a few weeks later we saw the paper and there was some crazy woman and it was her, who was going around spending a lot of money. Okay, time lapse. A year later in the summer, this woman comes in and she announces to us that she was engaged to marry Marlon Brando. And she was going to be flying to Cannes the next day in a private plane and she was buying a lot of things; clothes, things for Marlon’s children. And she had all this conversation while she’s shopping and she spent several thousand dollars. Half of us thought, this is great, Marlon Brando’s wife and the other thought said, she's a phony. At any rate, she bought all this stuff, she paid for it, she had the money and she left it there to be picked up the next day.

To make a very long story short, the next day she came in and bought some more stuff and she came in with her masseuse, Ingrid, to find things for her. Two funny things: at the end of all these purchases, like any good Greek merchant—she spent several thousand dollars—I decided to give her a gift. We had some little votive offerings that are silver things and I said, “Please give this to Mr. Brando.” I don’t remember what it was, but it was a thing. And she says, “Well, no, you have to write a note, say best wishes or something, make it more personal.” And it said, “Dear Marlon, best wishes…” and she took it. Then a couple of hours later, her masseuse, Ingrid, called and said that they had left an envelope there. Irma went back to get the envelope, she found it and she said, “I’m going to look in it,” and she did. And Irma found these newspaper clippings that said that this woman who was going to marry Marlon Brando was the woman who a year before was in for Christmas and was talking and standing and had been written up in The Times. So Irma said, “Look who this is, this is Jean Janssen.

So anyway, the woman came and picked that up… two side stories I want to tell you. First is we’re driving home in a cab from that shop and we’re talking about this incident. Effie and Irma are arguing about whether this woman was genuine or not. Irma says, “I knew she wasn’t genuine. Marlon Brando would never marry a woman like that.” The second part is, two months later… While she was in the shop, I was telling her that we were going to be in Venice next month, I was going to be a judge at a festival. She says, “Well, that’s wonderful because we’re going to be going to Italy on our honeymoon.” And she says, “What hotel will you be at?” She wrote it down and so forth. So even though I knew all of this was some kind of a crazy scam, all the two weeks we were in Venice, when I’d show up to the desk I’d say, “Are there any messages that say Mr. Brando will pick you up?" It never happened.

GREEK ISLAND MEMORY
An unfinished memoir – possibly press release – written by George in July 2006

Morningside Bookshop Launches Non-book “Little Basement Shop” Mini-Antiquery and Flea Market Annex
On a winter day way back in l963, heading to his apartment on Riverside Drive, Morningside Bookshop proprietor Peter Soter’s father George--at the time an advertising agency copywriter--noticed a “For Rent” sign in the basement store at 114th Street and Broadway. “What’s the rent?” he asked of the caretaker. “$75.00 a month,” was the magic reply. $75.00 a month! (We can afford that!) $75.00 a month! (We can’t lose much!)

That low rent was the trigger for George’s twenty-year-plus unplanned detour into the daily pleasures and travails of an upscale Greek shop in Manhattan--a shop that included importing, designing, marketing, public relations, and, unexpectedly, having conversations with celebrities (Katherine Hepburn! Alec Guiness! Faye Dunaway! Stephen Sondheim!). It was to be called “Greek Island Ltd.” And, in those twenty years achieved a certain amount of shopaholic interest.George at Greek Island, 1970s.

Although the low-rent basement shop was the trigger that made it possible--the New York Greek shop idea was accidentally born the year before. The Soters, with three young sons in tow, were on a long summer holiday in their native Greece. While discovering new relatives and beaches, as well as the celebrated ancient ruins, they also discovered in midtown Athens a wonderful un-touristy shop called “Their Majesties’ Fund” with uniquely stylish housewares, jewelry, and clothing, all of which employed traditional handcraft skills. The project was guided by sophisticated Athenian volunteers who were transforming age-old techniques into high-quality items attuned to modern tastes.

In the ’60s, a number of high-end native-craft shops were a growing presence in Manhattan. These included the Polish “Cepelia,” the Indian “Soma,” the Latin “Pan-American Shop,” the Finnish “Marimekko” and the multi-ethnic “Textiles and Objects.” George, a shopper and professionally sensitive to spotting trends, felt the time might be ripe for a “Their Majesties’ Fund” shop in Manhattan. He met with the Athens directors, outlined his thinking, and offered, strictly as a volunteer, to help them plan, develop, and carry through such a project. Soon, the directors, reported they liked the idea but did not have the funds for such an ambitious venture but would be happy to wholesale the goods to George, if he were to go ahead and open a shop in New York on his own.

Open a high-end Greek handcraft shop in New York! What a bizarre, unexpected, impossible, wonderful idea. Back in New York, George talked up the venture with friends at the Riverside Park sandlots, and an art director at work. Soon a core group of interested couples came together--young Morningside residents (the Soters, Meltzers, and Mayersons) plus the art director couple from Queens (the LaRosas). Their individual day-job professional activities included, medicine, publishing, pharmaceutical sales, advertising art direction and copywriting. There wasn’t a merchant or shopkeeper in the bunch.

For the next six months, the unlikely group would meet, talk it up, decide to go ahead, and, then, after an uneasy night facing up to all the practical “Why nots?”, they’d telephone each other to discuss their suddenly cold feet. And the adventure was off. That’s when the $75.00-a-month Broadway basement shop changed everything and the cold feet became a unanimous hot “Go!”

Even to the neophyte shopkeepers, it seemed imperitive that their shop be open for the holiday season shopping rushes. Very soon, the “creative types,” the Soters and LaRosas, with their combined total of five children in tow, were off to Greece (what fun!); the “business types,” the Meltzers and Mayersons, stayed behind to set up the shop (what fun!).

In Greece, the first stop was Their Majesties Fund warehouse, and then other handcraft centers beyond Athens--Maroussi, Mykonos, Crete--to shop and shop and ship and ship.

By early August of 1963, an overbought quantity of Greek “things” were a-sea and the Soters and LaRosas returned to New York. But--oh Zeus! oh Poseidon! oh Manoula mas!--the Meltzers and Mayersons reported that just a week ago, the landord of the basement shop had changed his mind about our adventure. We no longer had a $75.00-a-month shop to pioneer in, fix up, display our soon-to-arrive boatload of wonderful purchases and, maybe, just maybe, eventually get out of our individual rat race grooves.

GEORGE'S BAZAAR
Greek Island Redux
from Columbia Magazine, 2006

When George and Effie Soter wanted to open a shop, they had their sights set on a basement space a block from their home on West 113th Street. It was early 1963, and the owner of the space, at 2915 Broadway, offered the Soters a peach of a deal: $75 a month. The Soters were new to selling; George was creative director at a Midtown advertising firm, and Effie had a master’s in social work from Columbia. Sometimes the Soters took their small sons to the playground at 112th Street and Riverside Drive, and it was there that they met their eventual business partners, three young professional couples who, like the Soters, were looking to do something different. The Soters, both of Greek ancestry, had made numerous trips to Greece, and fell in love with the fabrics and dresses of the Greek islands. It was their idea to import these items and sell them in New York. The timing seemed right: Greece had come into vogue lately, with the success of the Jules Dassin film Never on Sunday (1960), starring Melina Mercouri. And with rent so low, how could they go wrong?

Full of optimism, the Soters went on their first buying trip to Greece in the summer of 1963. But when they returned with their crates of merchandise, they were dealt a blow: The landlord reneged on their deal. Desperate, the Soters hustled to find another space. Their search soon led them to a big empty storefront on East 49th Street. The property, which included five 19th- century buildings and a charming passageway-cum-garden, was owned by James Amster, a prominent interior designer whose commissions included Peacock Alley at the Waldorf-Astoria.

“Amster asked us what kind of store we wanted to open,” says George, an elegant and sociable man of 82 who speaks with the deep, polished intonations of a venerable stage actor. “We told him, and he said, ‘You’re just what I wanted: chic Greek.’” The rent was settled at $375 — not exactly the too-good-to-be-true bargain on Upper Broadway, but reasonable enough on a block whose residents included Katharine Hepburn and Stephen Sondheim. And so the Soters and their partners set up the store, called Greek Island Limited. The wives kept shop, alternating their days, while the husbands worked at their office jobs in Midtown. Sometimes George took over on weekends, bringing along a reel-to-reel tape player on which he’d play Greek folk music by artists like Mikis Theodorakis and Manos Hadjidakis.

“Katharine Hepburn would come in and say, ‘Turn down the music, I can’t concentrate,’” George says with a laugh. “But otherwise, she was very nice.” Hepburn wasn’t the only celebrity to visit Greek Island Limited. There was Marcello Mastroianni, Faye Dunaway, and the first Mrs. Rockefeller. Most memorable, though, was the day Jackie Kennedy Onassis dropped in. As First Lady, Jackie had famously sojourned in Greece in the early autumn of 1963 following the death of her infant son Patrick, and now, a few years later, she was married to the world’s most famous Greek shipping magnate. “When she came into the store, my wife, who was very cool, said, ‘What took you so long?’” George recalls. “And Jackie said, ‘I’ve been very busy.’”

As Greece developed economically in the 1970s and ’80s, the cost of importing Greek products became more expensive, and after some 20 years of business, Greek Island Limited was dissolved. Meanwhile, the Soter apartment had been filling up with the collected treasures of a life of foreign travel: art, jewelry, fabrics, posters — in addition to what was left over from the shop.

George retired from advertising in the early ’90s, and about 10 years ago, Effie developed Alzheimer’s. Much of George’s valued social life had disappeared.

In 2002, Peter Soter, George and Effie’s youngest son, took over as owner of Morningside Bookshop, formerly known as Papyrus. The store had a subterranean annex just around the corner on West 114th Street, where Peter stocked computer and business books. But the downstairs location made the annex difficult to see from the street, and the books just sat. That’s when Peter got an idea: Why not let George use the space to sell the stuff that had piled up in the apartment?

George jumped at the opportunity. The books were removed, replaced by tables and shelves that hold a good deal of the Soters’ personal possessions: century-old Turkish embroideries, Greek jewelry, Chinese gaming chips, handmade shepherd’s crooks, vintage European posters, original bird engravings by the 18th century artist Francois Martinet. The new shop, christened George’s Underground Bazaar, opened in September 2006, at 2915 Broadway — the exact space the Soters had tried to rent in 1963.

And while the rent is now higher than $75, George is on decidedly better terms with the current landlord, Columbia University.

“The Columbia community has been very positive,” says George, who benefits from the traffic upstairs at the bookshop, where Columbia and Barnard professors give readings. “It’s just good to be back where I almost started.” — Paul Hond

PROMOTION FOR GEORGE'S UNDERGROUND BAZAAR (2006)
Notes on George’s Underground Bazaar

Heading into its third month, our original three-fold objective seems to be working: 1. To call attention to our downstairs annex with its many shelves of out-of-print, used and odd books on art, film, music, drama, history, philosophy, and science fiction, inter alia. (Browser traffic is up.) 2. To give Peter’s “retired senior” father something entertaining to do. (He’s happily doing it.) 3. To be an unexpected neighborhood place to discover surprising one-of-a-kind things. Instances? A hand wrought iron collar studded with spikes, for Greek shepherd dogs that’s lethal to marauding wolves (sold); finely-etched mother-of-pearl Chinese gaming chips (pre-1840) turned by George’s California granddaughter Eva into spectacular earrings (pricey); an eye-popping oversize, Brazilian silver-dipped display rosary (sold); a collection of early 20th century museum-quality Turkish cevre scarves, characterized by double-sided embroidery work, and used by hamam-bound Turkish women to cover and disguise their utilitarian bath towels; two perfectly paired framed 18th century hand-colored bird engravings by Francois Martinet (official Graveur du Cabinet du Roi with 14,700 Google entries!) and a noteworthy predecessor of Audubon; circa 1960 French travel posters including several Salvador Dali rarities for French National Railroads; plus other singular discoveries, with even some flea market shelves. (What you haven’t explored it yet?)

LA ROSA SPEAKS
Some years ago, Joe LaRosa, George's former partner in Greek Island, wrote this brief memoir of Greek Island.

In early 1963 George Soter and I were working at ad agencies. He was at Lennon & Newell and I was at Needham Louis & Brorby. George a GreekAmerican and a major Grecophile convinced me that we could prosper by opening a small shop that sold Greek artifacts, clothing etc. At the time there was a lot of interest in things Greek, mostly because of Jackie Kennedy, so it seemed like a great idea. It was creative, fun and could involve our wives. The plan was to look for a small store or basement on the upper West Side near Columbia University where we would sell students Tagari bags (the precursor to the ubiquitous back pack) and other small items.

A buying trip was planned. At first George was to go alone but since I had a lot of vacation time due me a family vacation in Greece seemed like a good idea. George changed his plans and opted for a family vacation/ buying trip. The Soters', George, Effie his wife, and their three sons, Nick, Tom and 1 year old Peter and us, Joe Sr., Elly, Roberta, and Joe Jr. left for Greece the beginning of August 1963. We planned to stay for six weeks. We arrived in Athens, visited with the Soters' many relatives and took in the local scenery. A few days later we rented a Peugot sedan and drove off to places unknown with George at the wheel. He had just gotten his license and driving was an adventure. Nine of us in this little car with bags on the roof and Peter on my lap. We drove for days stopping from time at numerous small towns and villages where we searched for local artisans. George negotiated with them, in Greek of course, paid cash for their wares and told them to mail them to us in NY. Such trust. I was certain we'd never see any of those items again. But we did, every piece. Our major purchases though were made in two places, the island of Mikonos, where we contracted for lots of woolens, mostly from a woman named Vienoula, and in Athens at the Queens Fund. The QF was a large warehouse / store where artisans from all over Greece brought their wares. We bought or I should say, George, bought and bought. We, he, bought so much that our non-existant store was featured the next day on the front page of a leading Athens newspaper with the headline: Large American Combine to Open Huge Greek Store in New York Gty. After six weeks George and I headed back to NY leaving our families in Athens for another week. George got on, and off the plane proudly carrying a three foot tall 40 pound model of a Mikanos windmill. Eventually, this became the logo for Greek Island Ltd,.

Once back in NY we immediately began looking for an upper Westside basement! store motivated by the fact that a shipload of things would be arriving soon. Nothing was found to our liking. I received a call one day at my office from George, he told me to meet him immediately at a place on 49th St. off 3rd called Amster Yard. When I got there one look told me that this was no cute basement. We rang a bell by a large iron gate and were buzzed in.

We walked through a sort of tunnel flanked by small shops and into a beautiful garden complete with a large stone arch housing a mirror. In the left rear corner was a small elegant building and next to it a cottage where
James Amster a tall distinguished man in his mid fifties greeted us in stockinged feet. Before he said hello he asked us to remove our shoes. The cottage I learned was at one time a weigh station on the Old Post Road which had run thru the property. It was exquisitly done by Amster who was a noted decorator.

Our reason for being there, was that Amster had a store for rent that was part of the complex and it faced 49th St. It was highly desireable space and he advised us that many businesses had tried to rent it but that he had kept it empty for over a year because no suitable tenant could be found. He also mentioned in passing that it was very expensive.George, with friend in Amster Yard, 1960s.

When he said expensive I was ready to put my shoes on and leave. However George began expounding on our Greek adventures and how we needed a place immediately since a large quantity of merchandise was enroute. He explained the concept of the store and how the Greeks would rise again when he was interrupted by Amster who gasped .. :'My God how wonderful! My good friend Jon Robsjon-Gibbons ( a well-known designer) has just discovered Greece and he's designed an entire collection based around ancient Greek furniture. (deep breath) when can you boys (we became 'you boys' thereafter) move in?"

"Gee, Mr. Amster, how much is the rent?"

"It's $950 a month, without electricity of course,"

"Gee, Mr. Amster that's a lot, we're just starting you know." "Well, how about $800 a month?
"
"Gee, Mr. Amster I dunno."

"Well, how about $700 without electricity?"

"Hmmm."

"Just how much can 'you boys' afford?" "$325 with electricity."

A long pause.

"OK. But I'll have to raise the rent a little next year and if your successful at the end of three years, you'll have to pay $950."

"It's a deal". George and I said in unison.

We all put our shoes on and left the house to visit the store. It was perfect. Jimmy, it was Jimmy now, immediately began decorating our store. "You see those beautiful moldings in each room? They must be painted a Greek Blue. It's not blue exactly but sort of a teal with a touch of turquoise. All the doors must be Greek Blue too. The walls must be white with just the hint of a rough stucco finish. 'You boys' wait here while I get Norman. You must meet him." Norman was Norman Norell who lived in an Amster Yard apartment overlooking the gardens. He was a world renown couturier and a lovely man. In later years he would occasionally walk thru the store to get to his apartment because he'd forgotten his keys to the iron gate, or just to chat andd hang out.

And so Greek Island Ltd, was created. A Chic Greek Boutique. Open Six Days a Week, But Never On Sunday. A third couple was also involved as investors and participants. Marty Meltzer MD and Bunny his wife. The first shipment of merchandise was due to arrive at the end of October and there was much that still had to be done. Friends pitched in. George and I bought armoirs, tables and chairs in Soho. Somehow the store was ready, complete with Amster's Greek Blue mouldings and doors. All we needed now was the merchandise. Finally a call came from US Customs saying that the shipment was being held up for various reasons. We expected the worst. A meeting was held and we decided to dispatch Bunny to represent us. She was cute and had a wonderful befuddled air about her. She went to customs and reported back that the shipment would arrive in two days and that everything was taken care of. To this day no one knows how she did it.
Two days later at about 4PM I get a call at NLB to come to Greek Island, fast. When I get there, sitting in front of the shop is a single crate the size of a two-family house. The Greek concept of packaging. People are milling about trying to figure out how to open it wondering what the consequences would be if it was opened this way or that way. When we finally did open it hundreds o~ individually wrapped items were revealed. It took us till midnight just to transfer the items into the shop. To make matters more complicated the paperwork was in Greek and it took weeks to decipher. Could that be why
US Customs surrendered? I might add that many items were thought to be too good to be sold so they were diverted to the partner's homes for safekeeping.

About the second week in November everything was set. Catalogs, stationery, bags, etc., all the merchandise handsomely displayed. A three night intro to the shop was planned. Thursday would be for Greek luminaries, the Greek Ambassador, people from the consulate and rich Greeks. On Friday PR stuff, the Press. On Saturday our friends. It was a great plan except that President Kennedy had been assassinated earlier that week. the country was in mourning. We fretted over what to do. There was much handwringing but since invitations had been sent out and people had RSVP'd we decided to go through with it. It worked out OK most prople showed up but a pall hung over the festivities as it did through Christmas that year.

The shop prospered. Interesting things happened. Much of the set of the Broadway play Zorba the Greek was made ~p of items from Greek Island. The pillow that rests on JFK's famous rocker, a gift from Jackie is also from the shop. Katherine Hepum stopped in occasionally, she lived down the street as did a number of other celebrities who'd stop in. Michael Pollard who that year starred in 'Bonnie and Clyde' would come in, sit on a pile of Greek rugs in the window, and smoke pot. I don't recall him ever buying anything.

Jimmy Amster constantly mistook me for Marty Meltzer, the doctor. Once he came up to me with a pained look describing an ailment he was suffering from. I prescribed two asperins and a lot of sleep, it was easier than telling him I wasn't Marty, yet again.

When it came to displaying merchandise George and I differed. He was from the clutter is better school and I from the bare-bone Mies Vander Rohe school. He prevailed (fortunately) leaving not an inch of space uncovered. The walls, the floors and the ceiling were covered with things. We never needed a warehouse there was always room for another item no matter how big. Amster's famous Greek Blue moldings were barely visible as they peeked through baskets, pottery and komboloi (worry beads.) Making ones way to the rear of the store was an adventure and if anyone moved anything an inch George would move it back to its original space. He would lament if a favorite item had been sold when he was not there and would search through receipts to see if that customer was worthy enough.

George was a great merchandiser and a people person. I was neither. He enjoyed waiting on customers, I did not, but we all had to pitch in. On one occasion a well dressed gentleman came in and asked me about the price of a large vase which was on a very high shelf. I said I didn't know but if he was interested he could climb up the (shaky) ladder which was standing nearby and take a look. He did, carried the large vase down gingerly and bought it. I learned later he was David Rockerfeller. After that I was relegated to sweeping the place and, since I had the only car, delivering rugs.

Among other things Greek Island began importing beautiful hand woven dresses. Women loved the fabrics but the dresses on display had been made for Greek women who were generally shorter and wider than their American counterparts from the upper East Side, nothing fit. Not to worry, George solved that by announcing to any prospective buyer that a customized dress could be had in 5 days. Same fabric, same price. To accomplish this a phone call was made to a seamstress cousin in Greece and the order was magically filled. Getting it here was another matter. Many of our friends received mysterious packages in the mail marked 'Rush - deliver to Greek Island'.

This adventure in fashion led to the manufacturing of modem adaptations of classic Greek attire. Top students at the Fashion Institute were recruited to design clothing, which was then handmade somewhere in Greece. I don't know if this was a profitable venture, but I do know that George started a cottage industry and that somewhere in Greece a small village flourished.

I left after a few years to pursue other interests as did the Meltzers. George and Effie Soter stayed and through their efforts Greek Island at Amster Yard graced the neighborhood for over 20 years never losing its uniquenesss.

Letter to House & Garden, 1993