Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, June 28, 1993 TAG: 9306260132
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MICHAEL CSOLLANY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
And all the while, they're slicing the meat thin and stacking it high at the deli.
Does this scene sound like New York City?
Does this scene sound like Roanoke?
Well, it happens that it's both - well, sort of.
The New York name is pervasive in the Roanoke Valley, but this may only be evident with a flip through the "N" section of the white pages. New York Air Brake Company, New York Carpet World, New York Fashions, New York Life Insurance Company, New York Pizza, New York Subs, and the New Yorker Delicatessen & Restaurant have called Roanoke home for some time now.
To a greater extent than any other city, New York has made a name for itself here. There are no Los Angeles-named businesses. Charlotte and Atlanta haven't even established a foothold.
But what are these businesses and why do they name themselves after a city or state several hundred miles away?
There is no single answer.
Several of the "New York" businesses sought to bring products made famous in New York to Virginia.
When Harry P. Russell and his wife, Eileen, founded the\ New Yorker Delicatessen on Williamson Road in 1958, there were no other delis in the Roanoke Valley. People were initially taken aback, Eileen Russell said.
"They were stunned. In other words, they didn't know what pastrami was. They didn't know what lox was. They didn't know what to do with cream cheese and bagels," she said.
Russell said that her husband, who is originally from New York, wanted to introduce the valley to the food of his native land. Thirty-five years later, Russell said that they still use their own home recipes.
A strong reputation has led some competitors to copy, she said, but "as my husband always says, we're imitated but never duplicated."
Tony Montuori is originally from "the mountains of Italy."
After a stint in the Big Apple, Montuori longed to take his pizza-making craft back to the mountains. And that brought him here.
"I call it New York Pizza because that's where I learned how to make pizza," Montuori said of his Vinton business.
He said it did not take long for customers to get used to his business, although transplanted Northerners have always been a good percentage of his business even after 10 years of operation.
New York Pizza serves it up thin and is made from materials sent from the New York metro area.
Montuori said he's happy to be out of the Big Apple, though.
"I never did like New York. I've been all around, and this place has the best people. There's no way you can stay in business if the people give you a hard time," he said.
Harry Maghera shared his sentiments.
"I cannot handle a big city," he said.
But for 10 years, he and his wife, Jaswinder, have been bringing the clothing of New York to Roanoke at his downtown shop -\ New York Fashions.
"We are in a high-fashion business. New York City is a leader in fashion." he said "When we opened our business in 1983 - it's been 10 years - we took a close look at New York City."
In order to keep up with the trends in Gotham, Maghera attends fashion shows in New York several times a year. He has set up accounts with many mostly New York-based companies.
He said he learns in other ways, too.
"Lots of young kids come from up North and ask if we have this thing or that thing. Sometimes, we learn from the customers. Other times, we tell them what's in fashion."
These days, his Campbell Avenue shop is full of loose-fitting clothes with vibrant multicolored vertical stripes based on the popular Cross Colours line. He said this trend will keep his store stocked until the next trend begins. "My prediction is the solid colors for the fall," he noted.
Michigan-based New York Carpet World, which has a store in Roanoke, doesn't even have any operations in New York, according to owner Marvin Berlin.
"When we started out, the center for carpet styling was in New York," he said. So his company adopted the name.
Berlin said that when the company was expanding in the South, it considered changing its name from state to state. "But I was told, `Our competitors are going to tell everyone that we are a Northern company, so why are we hiding it?' " Berlin said.
Several of the New York named businesses are based in New York, like the New York Life Insurance Company and the New York Air Brake Company.
Vic Schendel, the general manager of the insurance company's Roanoke general office, said that the New York name is merely a historical footnote.
Back in 1845, when the Nautilus Insurance company was changing its name, "New York was the city in the United States," Schendel said. Schendel said that his company's good ratings, rather than its New York name is what has made it a "solid secure place to do business."
Tim Carr, a Roanoke representative of the New York Air Brake Company said that his upstate New York-based company has made a name for New York rather than vice versa.
New York Air Brake has a good reputation, Carr said, in the design and manufacture of air brakes and air brake systems for railroad and mass-transit systems. He is not marketing a New York product, he said. The company's name, he said, helps because of its reputation.
"It doesn't help from the standpoint of say somebody wanting to buy from a Roanoke Air Brake Company, but there is none," he noted.
But if there ever were to be a Roanoke Air Brake Company, one would have to think, would it be found in Manhattan?
by CNB