Understanding Ubiquitous Umbrellas

The Times’ Dan Barry asks where those ubiquitous black umbrellas come from, and finds out:

Down in yesterday morning’s wetness to West 28th Street, where pumpkins adorned a flower shop window display, and where Oscar Rodriguez stood outside another wholesale store, chanting the season’s theme song to the rain. “Umbrella, umbrella, umbrella.”

He said that when he arrives at the store at 7:30 on rainy mornings, the peddlers are lined up, waiting to buy a dozen for $10 – which they then sell piecemeal for whatever they can get. “Depends on the area,” he confided. “White people pay more.”

Finally, to a dreary storefront with a sign saying wholesale trade only: Imperial Umbrellas. You have to be buzzed into its drab showroom, where the multicolored umbrella display somehow added no color, and where the fluorescent light’s buzz provided the only music.

Several peddlers in wet clothes stood before a worn desk, behind which sat a small man with white hair and hound-dog eyes: Solomon Korn, for 30 years a Man To See in wholesale umbrellas.

As the peddlers placed their orders, Mr. Korn and an employee in the back engaged in an umbrella-model duet.

Employee: “Mr. Korn, Mr. Korn. One dozen W, two dozen 58-58, one dozen 22S?”

Mr. Korn: “One dozen W, two dozen 58-58, one dozen 22S. Give him the black, with the cover.”

The peddlers counted out their wet dollar bills and handed them to Mr. Korn. He smoothed away the crumpled dampness as best he could, and laid the bills neatly in a side drawer. Then the peddlers grabbed their cardboard boxes and left to make some more wet bucks.

Mr. Korn sells high-end and low-end umbrellas. He sells those cheap ones that end up like dead crows in the garbage for $9 a dozen, which means the peddlers pay 75 cents an umbrella. “They sell them for $3 if it’s raining,” he said with a shrug. “Two dollars if it’s not.”

His profit on each dozen of the cheap ones, he said: 50 cents.