Ask a New Yorker: Mark just got off the phone. How did your call go?
Mark: Good. I was speaking with someone, I’m not going to name the television
network, but they’re going to be doing a piece about us in the near future
which is exciting. This happens time to time. From early November through the
end of the year is always pretty exciting.
Ask a New Yorker: I’ve recently hit the reading glasses phase of life.
I like those specs.
Mark: There actually for astigmatism (laughter) so I can read fine. I see most
of the customers coming into the door.
Ask a New Yorker: Love the store and your neighborhood, Park Slope.
Mark: Park Slope for many years has been the San Francisco of New York City,
although I’ve heard the upper west describes as that too. Park Slope is
a brownstone community. I would say upper middle class but also mixed. People
are very environmentally aware here. So that’s sort of where our store
fits in. It’s very small business focused. You will not find a lot of
Starbucks here. In fact on this particular Ave there are no Starbucks. You also
will not find any chains on this street. It’s all mom and pop. People
who have started their own clothing lines etc…
Ask a New Yorker: Enough of Park Slope. Let’s talk about 3R
Living.
Mark: I was just telling someone the story a few minutes ago. My wife was a
retail person in NYC for 15 years. She was managing stores like Ann Taylor,
Victoria Secret in Manhattan. She was also one of the buyers for Fishes Eddy,
which deal with plates and glasses and that kind of thing. Somewhere in 2003
she decided she wanted to open her own store. At the time I was working as a
lobbyist for New York league of Conservation voters, working on local environmental
issues and getting local bills passed. I said, ‘Fine let’s open
a store but let’s try to do something that we’re both interested
in’. To keep us both interested, the idea melded over the course of a
year as we wrote our business plan and came into something that we created our
own eco-friendly home and life style store called 3R Living (Reduce, reuse,
recycle– some of the basis of the environmental movement). It’s one of
those things as we were writing out business plan. We went through names as
we were sitting on the couch with a glass of wine or two, three or four. We
tried to figure out a name that stuck that we felt would work. For whatever
reason this name stuck for us.
Ask a New Yorker: So what’s a hot seller?
Mark: We had a recent magazine article about some cuff links made from old watch
parts. It’s the inside of the watch fused to the end that go through your
cuff. I’ve had a hard time keeping them in stock. The artist is furiously
making them as we speak.
Ask a New Yorker: There is so much out there Green to purchase. How do you go
about choosing products?
Mark: It’s complicated. First of all when we started the store there weren’t
that many companies. One of the bases for our business was to sell products
that were affordable. A number of the green products that were out you either
didn’t really want and were sort of ugly at the time or they were expensive.
We were trying to find the right balance….it has to be green, we want
the right kind of design and we wanted it to be affordable. So that helped to
determine what we sell.
Ask a New Yorker: Let’s walk around the store. There so much to see. What
excites you in the store? What’s hot?
Mark: I’ve always liked this product. These are picture frames, reclaimed
wood. The artist actually started this from boats and over time used barns and
small buildings. He takes the natural pints and puts them together in fine strips
and puts in together in a decorative look and makes picture frames. He recently
started using some wallpaper form the 1960’s.
Ask a New Yorker: This is cool. It’s a deer, a moose?
Mark: I found these at the International Gift show a year ago. I don’t
think anyone thought of them as a green product. But you’re looking at
basically a flat pack card board cut out deer head. It’s been laser cut.
You just punch the pieces out and put it together like a puzzle and you have
a 3D head and you didn’t have to kill an animal for a trophy.
Ask a New Yorker: These wall designs have a similar green vibe.
Mark: A small company in Philadelphia called Neo-culture came up with these
designs, which are kind of pulp card board and they form into these kinds of
design tiles. You can use wall paper paste or small wood nails and tack them
into your wall and create a design. There also good for dampening sound in your
room. And you can paint them any color you want.
Ask a New Yorker: Mark and I have walked into the backroom. What catches your
eye in this room?
Mark: These are glasses, glassware, called green glass from Wisconsin. They
have always done something very interesting. All there glassware is made from
reused glass not recycled. Recycled means: chopping it up and melting it down
and making something out of it. They actually take bottles and repurpose them
into something else. As you can see right here they chop the wine bottle in
half, the other half becomes the wine glass. They do it with beer bottles and
soda bottles.
Ask a New Yorker: I imagine this would be a popular place for wedding registry?
Mark: We started wedding registry on line about two years. It’s been a
pretty big success, people from all over the country looking to go green for
their weddings.
Ask a New Yorker: Here’s a book called 1001 Ways to Save the Earth. What’s
the #1 way to save the planet?
Mark: Well, the first way to save the earth and I shouldn’t say this as
a store owner, is to think twice before you buy something. Do you really need
it? I think what I’m looking for is people who look for a green alternative
if they need to buy something.
Ask a New Yorker: Thank you Mark. This is a perfect time for thoughtful gift
giving.
