Joe Michaels
Diamond
- Joined
- Apr 3, 2004
- Location
- Shandaken, NY, USA
I caught sight of an ancient hardware store in Hudson, NY. Unique in that nearly all the old stores in Hudson, NY are now antique dealers or art dealers, selling trendy stuff we threw away when we outgrew it, and getting astronomical prices for it. I spotted this old hardware store and looking in the door as I drove past, I saw a Starrett display. Today, I got over to Hudson, NY with a couple of hours to kill, and found that hardware store. It is a blast from the past and then some. The hardware store is called Rogerson's. It has been there, in that very same building and store since 1830. It is a very interesting hardware store, in that it is not affiliated with any of the chains like Ace or True Value. Walking in, I saw the Starrett tool sign hanging from the ceiling, and counters and wall cases with Starrett tools, along with drawers of all sorts of old hardware, bins of wire rope and rigging stuff like wire rope clips and turnbuckles and shackles.... As I walked in, I noted a huge webbed cast iron angle plate, the kind you'd need a helper with you to pick up. New Old Stock Walker-Turner motors, heaps of new old stock pillow block bearings, Lufkin steel rules, taps, and literally hundreds of boxes of files of every size and type made by Nicholson, Grobet, and some German file makers. Rifflers, equalling files, large files and barette style needle files... Stuff piled on stuff, and all of it good, and most appearing as new-old-stock.
As I browsed my way into the store, a lady at the counter asked me what I needed. I asked for a can of Dykem blue, which, of course, they did not have. I needed some socket head capscrews, so the lady called upstairs to a man named Bart. Bart, she explained, had been buying up old inventory as mill supply houses went out of business, and had been piling it into the upstairs. The lady said a person could not move in the upstairs areas as Bart had it packed so full. Bart came down, an older man in a shop coat, and asked me what I wanted. I told him. He asked me if I had a machine shop and was I a machinist. I told him yes on both counts. He asked me what machine tools I had, what kind of work I did. Then, he asked me if I had any surplus tools to sell him. I said no, and we got to talking further. Bart said he had a small machine shop in the upstairs, and he took me up to see it. He had a Southbend Heavy 10" lathe, a Clausing vertical mill, a Harvey die filer, and some heavy woodworking machine tools. Bart said he was no machinist, but enjoyed getting into the work. He then gave me the 50 cent tour. He had shelves of new shim stock in rolls, tons of end mills, face mills, toolbits, twist drills, taps, dies, and other milling cutters. He had tons of assorted US made hand tools and parts for them. I saw old US made woodworking vises laying in a dusty pile on the floor, along with unrelated other stuff. It was a profusion of stuff and it was mind boggling for me.
We wound up spending over an hour visiting. We introduced ourselves, and Bart said his last name is Slutzky. There is a prominent family by that name who developed the Hunter Mountain ski slope and resort properties within a stone's throw of Hudson, NY. I asked Bart if he was related, and he said he figured back in the old country, possibly. He said he was Russian Jewish, and at the same instant, we both started speaking Yiddish. It was old home week. Kidding and carrying on like I had not been party to since older relatives were amongst the living was the order of the day. Bart is a real oldtimer, kind of slow and deliberate, and he knows his tools. He knows what they are used for and what they are worth, but sitting on new old stock, I tend to think he would cut a bit of a break. Some of the Starrett stuff he had looked like it was old before WWII, solid dark red boxes, rather than the lighter red with the white lined "diamond" pattern with the Starrett logos.
Bart put the socket head screws I needed in a bag, and I picked out a new Grobet Riffler file. Bart looked up his cost on the riffler, and discounted 25% on that. Bart asked me if I had a filing machine, and asked what type chuck it had. He said he had the mother lode of machine files, and if I called ahead next time, he'd pull together and assortment. Bart did something I hadn't seen in years- he pulled out a pack of unfiltered Camels and lit up in his store (against NYS law to smoke in a business establishment, but I am sure Bart could care less what the law has to say). He then took a receipt pad and hand-wrote up what I'd bought using a pen, carbon copied. He looked up the prices, figured a discount, and asked me for my card. He said he gets people coming in needing specialized parts made for one thing or another, and he'd refer work to me.
As an aside, while Bart and I were kibbitzing- Bart asking me about my life's work and then some- in came some guy from the artsy crowd. The guy said he needed "six large spikes". Bart asked him how big, and the guy pulled a bolt from a bin and said about that length. Bart told the guy he sold nails by the pound, not the piece, and the guy got a little uptight and made some remark about an old store looking like it was going out of business, and how it was little wonder seeing how they treated a customer. By this point, I was on a roll. I reached into a nail bin, and found one of the old "claws". These were used to pull out bulk nails. When we were kids and the old man was in the lumber yard, we'd chase each other around with those claws. Anyhow, I pulled out the claw- same "D" type loop handle, so old it looked like a blacksmith had made it and re-welded it when it wore out. I showed the claw to the artsy-fartsy guy and said: "Lookit- REAL hardware stores sell nails by the pound. If you want 'em in a container, you gotta take a keg, and that's 100 lbs. If you want a cute little blister pack of nails, go to Lowe's. This is a piece of history and a real hardware store." Bart chimed in that he'd sell the guy a pound of 16d common nails for a buck. The guy whined that he did not want a pound of nails, only six of them. So, Bart and another fellow from the back counted out six nails. Told the guy it would be 50 cents. The guy pulled out a ten dollar bill. Bart and the other fellow (wearing a suit and tie and running the back office) said they could not break the ten spot, so take the nails on the house and remember them when he next needed hardware. That is how the oldtimers did business, you'd never see that happen in Lowe's or Home Despot. Nice to see it still happens in an oldtime hardware store.
Another guy came in and said he needed a hook to hang a "pool rack" on the wall. Bart thought the guy wanted to hang something else totally different. I kidded about pool halls- Bart & I being of the generations whose mothers warned us to stay out of such places. Bart was trying to understand what the guy wanted to hang on the wall, confusing it with swimming pools and some kind of rack. I said: "Give 'im a large brass wardrobe or harness hook". Bart went right to a wooden bin and out came a nice brass wall hook. The customer was delighted and wound up also buying some really nice solid brass numbers to put on his mailbox sign. Not the new Chinese drek, but real nice solid cast brass with crisp lines to them. The hardware they have in that place is not to be believed. Bart told me he'd bought out a supplier of electric motors and mechanical drive parts, so he had a glut of pulleys, pillow blocks, gear reducers, and similar if I needed anything along those lines. Bart was showing me one stash or pile of NOS stuff after another, and it was amazing to me.
Bart told me he has been buying up inventory as the independent stores and especially the old mill and machine shop supply houses went out of business. He has packed the old building. I suspect Bart is a machinist tool junkie. He seems to be a kindred spirit, and had all the time in the world to spend with me while this assortment of customers came in and out. I can see where a visit to Bart in his hardware store could be quite addictive and expensive, but I aim to be a repeat customer. Bart gave me his phone number and said to call ahead to be sure he is there.
The hardware store is right on Warren Street in Hudson, NY. Hudson is a town which had a lot of manufacturing, companies making power presses and conveyors and the odd specialty of "ice tools"- tools for cutting and handling cakes of ice from ponds or rivers. It had cement mills, and foundries, and all sorts of industry, but nothing of that is left. I walked along Warren Street and saw a row of clay foundry crucibles lined up as art objects in a store window. In another store, and ancient woodworking bandsaw with lacy curved-spoke wheels stood as a display prop. Warren Street is given over to the artsy-fartsy crowd, mostly up from NY City. Rogerson's is a holdout, one of the last of the original businesses. If you get into Hudson, head uphill on Warren Street, and you will see a set of railroad tracks running in the pavement, crossing Warren Street at what looks like a village square. Rogerson's is on Warren Street, by the railroad tracks and square. The railroad tracks are (or were until recently) in use. Local freight servicing some cement silos and possibly some grain storage silos is moved over tracks which run right in the streets of Hudson. Most of the old industrial buildings have been re-purposed into hip clubs and studios, and the industry and the people who worked at it are very nearly extinct. My wife and I had gone into some of the new shops, and we had to stifle a combination of "I don't believe what they are charging.... we threw better stuff out when I was a kid..." and plain laughter. Seeing old meat grinders (the kind you clamp to the table and crank) and old egg beaters and Sunbeam mixers being sold as antiques with high prices has us scratching our heads wondering who buys this stuff and what they do to have that kind of loot. Meanwhile, Rogerson's is the real find, the original, and a real mother lode. Fortunately, the people who think a beat up toaster or meat grinder needs to be tastefully displayed with dried weeds coming out it have not discovered Rogerson's- or maybe Bart's people skills see to it the place stays as a time capsule for people like us.
As I browsed my way into the store, a lady at the counter asked me what I needed. I asked for a can of Dykem blue, which, of course, they did not have. I needed some socket head capscrews, so the lady called upstairs to a man named Bart. Bart, she explained, had been buying up old inventory as mill supply houses went out of business, and had been piling it into the upstairs. The lady said a person could not move in the upstairs areas as Bart had it packed so full. Bart came down, an older man in a shop coat, and asked me what I wanted. I told him. He asked me if I had a machine shop and was I a machinist. I told him yes on both counts. He asked me what machine tools I had, what kind of work I did. Then, he asked me if I had any surplus tools to sell him. I said no, and we got to talking further. Bart said he had a small machine shop in the upstairs, and he took me up to see it. He had a Southbend Heavy 10" lathe, a Clausing vertical mill, a Harvey die filer, and some heavy woodworking machine tools. Bart said he was no machinist, but enjoyed getting into the work. He then gave me the 50 cent tour. He had shelves of new shim stock in rolls, tons of end mills, face mills, toolbits, twist drills, taps, dies, and other milling cutters. He had tons of assorted US made hand tools and parts for them. I saw old US made woodworking vises laying in a dusty pile on the floor, along with unrelated other stuff. It was a profusion of stuff and it was mind boggling for me.
We wound up spending over an hour visiting. We introduced ourselves, and Bart said his last name is Slutzky. There is a prominent family by that name who developed the Hunter Mountain ski slope and resort properties within a stone's throw of Hudson, NY. I asked Bart if he was related, and he said he figured back in the old country, possibly. He said he was Russian Jewish, and at the same instant, we both started speaking Yiddish. It was old home week. Kidding and carrying on like I had not been party to since older relatives were amongst the living was the order of the day. Bart is a real oldtimer, kind of slow and deliberate, and he knows his tools. He knows what they are used for and what they are worth, but sitting on new old stock, I tend to think he would cut a bit of a break. Some of the Starrett stuff he had looked like it was old before WWII, solid dark red boxes, rather than the lighter red with the white lined "diamond" pattern with the Starrett logos.
Bart put the socket head screws I needed in a bag, and I picked out a new Grobet Riffler file. Bart looked up his cost on the riffler, and discounted 25% on that. Bart asked me if I had a filing machine, and asked what type chuck it had. He said he had the mother lode of machine files, and if I called ahead next time, he'd pull together and assortment. Bart did something I hadn't seen in years- he pulled out a pack of unfiltered Camels and lit up in his store (against NYS law to smoke in a business establishment, but I am sure Bart could care less what the law has to say). He then took a receipt pad and hand-wrote up what I'd bought using a pen, carbon copied. He looked up the prices, figured a discount, and asked me for my card. He said he gets people coming in needing specialized parts made for one thing or another, and he'd refer work to me.
As an aside, while Bart and I were kibbitzing- Bart asking me about my life's work and then some- in came some guy from the artsy crowd. The guy said he needed "six large spikes". Bart asked him how big, and the guy pulled a bolt from a bin and said about that length. Bart told the guy he sold nails by the pound, not the piece, and the guy got a little uptight and made some remark about an old store looking like it was going out of business, and how it was little wonder seeing how they treated a customer. By this point, I was on a roll. I reached into a nail bin, and found one of the old "claws". These were used to pull out bulk nails. When we were kids and the old man was in the lumber yard, we'd chase each other around with those claws. Anyhow, I pulled out the claw- same "D" type loop handle, so old it looked like a blacksmith had made it and re-welded it when it wore out. I showed the claw to the artsy-fartsy guy and said: "Lookit- REAL hardware stores sell nails by the pound. If you want 'em in a container, you gotta take a keg, and that's 100 lbs. If you want a cute little blister pack of nails, go to Lowe's. This is a piece of history and a real hardware store." Bart chimed in that he'd sell the guy a pound of 16d common nails for a buck. The guy whined that he did not want a pound of nails, only six of them. So, Bart and another fellow from the back counted out six nails. Told the guy it would be 50 cents. The guy pulled out a ten dollar bill. Bart and the other fellow (wearing a suit and tie and running the back office) said they could not break the ten spot, so take the nails on the house and remember them when he next needed hardware. That is how the oldtimers did business, you'd never see that happen in Lowe's or Home Despot. Nice to see it still happens in an oldtime hardware store.
Another guy came in and said he needed a hook to hang a "pool rack" on the wall. Bart thought the guy wanted to hang something else totally different. I kidded about pool halls- Bart & I being of the generations whose mothers warned us to stay out of such places. Bart was trying to understand what the guy wanted to hang on the wall, confusing it with swimming pools and some kind of rack. I said: "Give 'im a large brass wardrobe or harness hook". Bart went right to a wooden bin and out came a nice brass wall hook. The customer was delighted and wound up also buying some really nice solid brass numbers to put on his mailbox sign. Not the new Chinese drek, but real nice solid cast brass with crisp lines to them. The hardware they have in that place is not to be believed. Bart told me he'd bought out a supplier of electric motors and mechanical drive parts, so he had a glut of pulleys, pillow blocks, gear reducers, and similar if I needed anything along those lines. Bart was showing me one stash or pile of NOS stuff after another, and it was amazing to me.
Bart told me he has been buying up inventory as the independent stores and especially the old mill and machine shop supply houses went out of business. He has packed the old building. I suspect Bart is a machinist tool junkie. He seems to be a kindred spirit, and had all the time in the world to spend with me while this assortment of customers came in and out. I can see where a visit to Bart in his hardware store could be quite addictive and expensive, but I aim to be a repeat customer. Bart gave me his phone number and said to call ahead to be sure he is there.
The hardware store is right on Warren Street in Hudson, NY. Hudson is a town which had a lot of manufacturing, companies making power presses and conveyors and the odd specialty of "ice tools"- tools for cutting and handling cakes of ice from ponds or rivers. It had cement mills, and foundries, and all sorts of industry, but nothing of that is left. I walked along Warren Street and saw a row of clay foundry crucibles lined up as art objects in a store window. In another store, and ancient woodworking bandsaw with lacy curved-spoke wheels stood as a display prop. Warren Street is given over to the artsy-fartsy crowd, mostly up from NY City. Rogerson's is a holdout, one of the last of the original businesses. If you get into Hudson, head uphill on Warren Street, and you will see a set of railroad tracks running in the pavement, crossing Warren Street at what looks like a village square. Rogerson's is on Warren Street, by the railroad tracks and square. The railroad tracks are (or were until recently) in use. Local freight servicing some cement silos and possibly some grain storage silos is moved over tracks which run right in the streets of Hudson. Most of the old industrial buildings have been re-purposed into hip clubs and studios, and the industry and the people who worked at it are very nearly extinct. My wife and I had gone into some of the new shops, and we had to stifle a combination of "I don't believe what they are charging.... we threw better stuff out when I was a kid..." and plain laughter. Seeing old meat grinders (the kind you clamp to the table and crank) and old egg beaters and Sunbeam mixers being sold as antiques with high prices has us scratching our heads wondering who buys this stuff and what they do to have that kind of loot. Meanwhile, Rogerson's is the real find, the original, and a real mother lode. Fortunately, the people who think a beat up toaster or meat grinder needs to be tastefully displayed with dried weeds coming out it have not discovered Rogerson's- or maybe Bart's people skills see to it the place stays as a time capsule for people like us.
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