I am a little foggy on details, but will fill in what I can. Sal ultimately moved the shop to a second location on 14th Street, near 8th Avenue. Sometime in the mid 90's, I believe, the shop was sold to a cousin or other family member. I wanna say his name is Don or Dom or something of the sort. I recall hearing that he was interested in business much more than he was interested in bicycles, but who knows. The shop's name was changed to "'A' Bicycle Shop". Until about 5 years ago, there was a great old-school wrench there named Giovanni. I met him when every other shop I went to told me that I'd have to replace the fork on my Somec track bike (originally purchased at Stuyvesant in '85) after it was bent in a crash. He simply pulled it straight and sent me on my way. Rumor had it, Vanni had quite a line on old Campy bits and would sell some customers vintage stuff kinda "under the table". Don and company moved the shop to Chelsea about two years ago, where it still operates.
Matthew Bowne
Brooklyn, New York
> Date: Tue, 18 Aug 2009 20:39:26 -0700
> From: andy@strawberrybicycle.com
> To: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org
> Subject: [CR] Left Coast Inquiry
>
> Howdy CR List,
> So, on the same family holiday trip to the Big Apple in 1965, I visited
> Thomas Avenia's store and also Mr. Sal Corso's Stuyvesant shop where I
> purchased a pair of sew-up wheels with Nisi rims and Campag high flange
> hubs (just had to have the high flange to make me go that little bit
> faster so I could beat Nick Zeller in the sprint for the Oregon State
> Road Race - all twelve of us! Unfortunately, to no avail.). My
> question, after perusing Google, is what happened to Sal and his
> Stuyvesant Cycle Shop?
> Andy Newlands
> Terra Nova Cycles, LLC (Strawberry Cycles Engineering & Fabrication)
> 1535 S.W. 17th. Ave.
> Portland, OR 97201
> tel/fax 503-224-1215
> http://www.strawberrybicycle.com
> http://www.oregonframebuilders.org
> http://www.marchettispa.it