East Village Shoe Repair: A Photo Series

If you have never been to New York City, and you rely on 90s sitcoms as your reference for it, you would not be surprised to walk into the East Village Shoe Repair. A street-level, train-car sized shop, jammed and boiling to the brim with things: yellow receipts and slightly saturated polaroids of bands pasted to the wall, old shoes, sole-less, double-platformed, and toeless … everywhere, clothes and clothes and clothes piled high in black bags, sewing machines, spray cans, and two men that look like they have not left the shop for a couple of decades. 

Boris Zuborev and Eugene Finkelberg have been New York cobblers since 1994 when they opened East Village Shoe Repair on St Mark’s Place. While the name has stuck, they now find themselves in Bushwick, Brooklyn with the rest of the village veterans who can’t afford Manhattan anymore. 

I first walked into the East Village Shoe Repair when I needed some mending on a backpack that I was not ready to let go of yet. Quickly, the two intended visits — a drop-off and pick up —  turned into many. It took a couple of months for Eugene, who appeared to do most of the cobbling, to reline my backpack but by the time it was done I had almost forgotten my reason for my visits. Boris, who did all the talking, would fill my visits with stories of their time in the village, making shoes for anyone who was about to become anything —  the original club kids of the 90s, stars like Lady Gaga and Madonna and even for brands like Nike. The shop I visited in 2019 was frequented by people wanting school kicks repaired, work leathers polished,  discount designers, or a re-soling but Boris assures me the custom platform biz is thriving in their new location. 

The photo series illustrates my time with Eugene and Boris at their little shop in their new village.