{"id":427,"date":"2005-10-17T09:45:58","date_gmt":"2005-10-17T17:45:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/wordpress\/archives\/2005\/10\/understanding_ubiquitous_umbrellas.html"},"modified":"2005-10-17T09:45:58","modified_gmt":"2005-10-17T17:45:58","slug":"understanding_u","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/archives\/2005\/10\/understanding_u.html","title":{"rendered":"Understanding Ubiquitous Umbrellas"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Times&#8217; Dan Barry asks where those ubiquitous black umbrellas come from, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2005\/10\/15\/nyregion\/15about.html\">and finds out<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>Down in yesterday morning&#8217;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&#8217;s theme song to the rain. &#8220;Umbrella, umbrella, umbrella.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>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 &#8211; which they then sell piecemeal for whatever they can get. &#8220;Depends on the area,&#8221; he confided. &#8220;White people pay more.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>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&#8217;s buzz provided the only music.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>As the peddlers placed their orders, Mr. Korn and an employee in the back engaged in an umbrella-model duet.<\/p>\n<p>Employee: &#8220;Mr. Korn, Mr. Korn. One dozen W, two dozen 58-58, one dozen 22S?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Korn: &#8220;One dozen W, two dozen 58-58, one dozen 22S. Give him the black, with the cover.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>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. &#8220;They sell them for $3 if it&#8217;s raining,&#8221; he said with a shrug. &#8220;Two dollars if it&#8217;s not.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>His profit on each dozen of the cheap ones, he said: 50 cents.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Times&#8217; Dan Barry asks where those ubiquitous black umbrellas come from, and finds out: Down in yesterday morning&#8217;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&#8217;s theme song to the rain. &#8220;Umbrella, umbrella, umbrella.&#8221; He said that [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-427","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the_geek_out"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=427"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}