East Village shoe store’s photo gallery shines
BY GABE HERMAN
In a pre-Instagram world, Rainbow
Shoe Repair, a Lower East Side shop
on Delancey Street, was a popular place
for decades for local residents to get photos
taken, whether for passports, portraits or
to mark a special occasion like graduation,
communion or Easter.
A new LES exhibition features many
photos taken at the shop from the 1980s to
early 2000s. The show is called “Rainbow
Shoe Repair: An Unexpected Theater of
Flyness,” and is at Abrons Arts Center, at
466 Grand St.
The staff at the shoe repair shop, still
open at 170 Delancey St., became known
for taking affordable photos, first under
Joseph Borukhov, who ran the store from
the mid-1908s to mid-90s, and then under
Ilya Shaulov, who continued the photo
studio from the late 1990s to mid-2000s.
Nelson Hernandez.
The shop’s studio became known for its
backdrops of primary colors, with many
photos featuring a stark red background,
while a rainbow sky was another option.
An inspiration for the exhibition started
with one photo, noted co-curator Ali Rosa-
Salas. It was a portrait of a girl, Sammi
Gay, with her father Elroy, with the red
backdrop and taken in 1996.
“I was so struck by the composition and
intimacy of parent and child,” said Rosa-
Salas. “I was curious about why people
were coming back to this place and where
was this place?”
Along with photos on display in a space
inside the Abrons Arts Center, some
are also posted outside on streets in the
neighborhood. That father-daughter photo
is one of several shown on the outside of
the Arts Center building.
“This picture was taken on Halloween,”
Sammi Gay is quoted as saying in
the exhibition. “I was dressed as a black
Barbie and my dad picked the outfit out. I
see that the hat my dad is wearing is one
he designed. This picture makes me proud
Portraits from the exhibition posted outside the Abrons Arts Center
on the Lower East Side.
Portrait of Sammi and Elroy Gay,
posted outside the Abrons Arts
Center.
of him, his work ethic, and our evolving
father-daughter relationship.”
Other photos are posted at Martin
Luther King Jr. Community Park, Boys &
Girls Republic, and Workforce Development
Center.
Photo themes were posted at the various
locations based on relevance, noted Rosa-
Salas, such as a portrait of local resident
Shawntel Dunbar, which is posted at the
Workforce site because she was photographed
when she first started working at
Wall Street.
“Those anecdotes are really powerful,
the way you fashion yourself,” said Rosa-
Salas. “There’s an element of how you’re
perceived. Shawntel was concerned with
PHOTO BY GABE HERMAN
representing the neighborhood.”
The word “flyness” was used for the
show’s title, said Rosa-Salas, to indicate
that people were self-aware in the photos
and knew they looked good and wanted to
show it. “We wanted to highlight that these
photos are intentional,” she said.
The show was also timed with New York
Fashion Week to show local New York
neighborhood fashion, particularly with the
LES struggling with issues of gentrification
and holding onto its identity, Rosa-Salas
said.
And while retro looks are coming back
to high fashion, Rosa-Salas noted, “None of
this is new. Folks have been doing this for
a long time.” She added, “It’s a cool way to
track the neighborhood in its transition.”
The photos were gathered from Rainbow
Shoe Repair’s archives and from an open
call for LES residents, who have a lot of
meaning in their photos from the shop,
Rosa-Salas noted, and often remember
the exact circumstances the photos were
taken in.
And now in the digital age, “folks are
excited to share these because they’re not
necessarily on display in their homes,” said
Rosa-Salas, “and they have the opportunity
to reflect on themselves and style, and
where they were at the time.”
More photos have been contributed to
the show since it opened and more people
have learned about it, Rosa-Salas added.
“That’s been something I was secretly
hoping for,” she said.
The show will run until March 29, and
more information can be found at abronsartscenter.
org.
Jessica LeBron.
Jasmine Lopez.
Schneps Media February 13, 2020 19