Elias’s Shoe Repair
Elias’s Shoe Repair
126 West 72nd StreetNew York, NY 10023
212 595 0230
M-Sa 8am-7pm
Elias’s Shoe Repair has sat in the same place on 72nd Street since 1995. In a city that is always fluctuating, Elias is a constant, steadily fixing shoes for over two decades. When I walked in one summer afternoon, I saw Elias’s wife sitting next to him as he cobbled. When I asked her if she worked with him, she replied with a grin, “You see me playing on my phone – I’m not working.”
The couple comes from the same town in Greece, where Elias originally learned how to repair shoes. As his wife says, they immigrated “for the same reason as everyone else – for a better life.” Some of Elias’s customers have been coming to him since the first year he opened. Those clients are most likely used to the sight of the Greek pair sitting together. “I keep him company,” Elias’s wife said. “It’s the old fashioned way. It’s what my mother would do with my father.”