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Troy's New And Old Businesses The Sweet Shoppe, New Old Stuff and Troy Quick Shoe Repair By, Patricia Dumas Troy Quick Shoe Repair is a business that has been operating in our city for nine decades. Located at 81 3rd Street between Congress and State Streets, it is currently co-owned by Dan Schongar and Bill McGrath, both natives and residents of Troy. The two partners bought the store eight years ago when Ted DeBonis retired from the family business that had been established in 1908. Ted had inherited the business from his father, Mike DeBonis. The present owners are well trained in the work of repairing shoes because they started working in the DeBonis family store when they were high school students. Bill, older than Dan, was already working there when Dan was hired. Dan recalls that he started out as a part-time helper dusting the shelves. He continued to work in the store and began learning the trade during his high school years and later, when he was a student at Hudson Valley Community College. As one of only a few shoe repair shops in the Capital District, the Troy site draws customers from throughout the area. Besides its trade-name function, the store provides diversified services related to foot care and comfort. It carries a complete line of Dr. Scholl foot care products and of physician-recommended orthopedic products manufactured by Spence Medical Corporation. Customers also can have luggage, zippers, and leather garments repaired, shoes dyed, scissors sharpened, and hockey skates sharpened. Shoe dying is especially popular as Troy Quick matches color directly from material swatches rather than from a color-code chart. The various products including laces, polishes, and rain boots, are attractively displayed in the front of the shop. The workshop is in a back room where an array of machines are used to perform specific tasks. There, the two partners work diligently at their trade. A wall partition separates the functions into an efficient division of labor. Bill, on one side, handles the initial stages of repair such as cutting and trimming, removing old soles, nailing and stitching. The product then is handed across a counter to Dan, on the other side, where finishing touches such as pasting, sanding, and dyeing are done. When a product is ready it goes to Dan's wife, Rose, his part-time helper who packages and shelves it, ready for customer pick-up The business partners, Dan says, work smoothly together even though their life styles differ. (Bill is single. Dan and his wife are the parents of two children, a fourteen year old daughter, Christin, and an eleven year old son, Dale.) The two proprietors look favorably on the city's revitalization efforts with the potential for increased business downtown. Candy lovers are enjoying one of Troy's newer business places, The Sweet Shoppe, which has been opened as an addition to the quality home furnishings store known as New Old Stuff, on the corner of Pawling Avenue and Plum street in the city's east side. Proprietor Eve Warden, who has owned and operated New Old Stuff for 14 years, expanded her store space last December to house the new shop. Now, customers who come to browse and buy at New Old Stuff can walk into adjoining quarters where tempting trays of chocolate candy are displayed in glass cases, where big glass jars contain various other candies and where shelves hold boxes and tins of gourmet coffee and teas. A wide array of gift items and the famous label Beanie Babies also are a part of The Sweet Shoppe stock. Customers, who enter the store either from the front on through the adjoining store also may purchase coffee, tea, and gourmet food items to eat at little tables near the candy counters. Eva Warden is a firm supporter of Troy as "a good place for a business." For twenty five years, she and her husband, Gary, owned and operated Gary's Mobil Station on the same corner where her business stores now stand. An active supporter of charitable fund-raisers, Eve Warden turned to her store's stock of Beanie Babies to help raise more than $5,000 for Troy's Clothe-A-Child program. Through a donation/matching purchase arrangement, The Sweet Shoppe became one of the program's highest contributors. Five employees are on the a staff of the two stores, New Old Stuff and The Sweet Shoppe. Janet Dickinson has worked in New Old Stuff 10 years and Carol Ciaccia has worked there six years. Diane Horton, Mary Ellen Bailey, and Dawn Van Duver are the other staffers, with Diane managing The Sweet Shoppe. The store name, New Old Stuff, is explained by the stock specialty which is new furniture designed as antique a reproductions. Dealing only with quality American Furniture manufacturers, Mrs. Worden selects pieces to compliment various customer chosen styles. A vast array of collectibles, household furnishings, linens, dishes, wall hangings and various gift items, ranging from candies to furniture, fill the store. To serve its many customers, New Old Stuff is open seven days a week. In cooperation with Troy United Ink Corp., a not-for-profit corporation 
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