beatonthestreet
04-15-2010, 06:46 AM
I love stories like this..................................
There’s a homeless guy near our offices who has taken it upon himself fight both his circumstances and the recession to make a break for a better life.
At a guess he’s in his forties or fifties, but having (we suspect) been on the streets for some time, looks considerably older. His face and clothes are ragged and grubby and he wears a defeated look.
But he is far from that.
East London has lots of old buildings which sit vacant and dilapidated. He has chosen a plot in front of a particularly large, dark and ominous-looking edifice on Shoreditch High Street - to set up what can only be described as a ‘shop’.
I doubt his documents are in order or that he pays the rents and taxes forked out to Her Majesty’s agents by HMV or Marks and Spencer; but to their credit the authorities have so far turned a blind eye.
This could be, at least in part, because none of his merchandise is stolen. It can't be. To be honest it’s rubbish.
There’s a range of mismatched clothes that hang from a wire fence. In the ‘window’ there’s an old fan (which may or may not be broken), a collection of deflated footballs, a toaster, old shoes (pairs and singles), small indefinable ornaments and plenty more jumble besides.
His ‘stock’ is probably assembled from the contents of bins, rejected charity shop items and things he just finds. What’s surprising is that the new store seems to be doing fairly well.
When I passed today, three or four people were browsing. A lady who picked up a pair of crumpled boots seemed genuinely frustrated to discover they weren’t her size. “Do you have any more in the back?” I heard her nearly ask.
Meanwhile a man eyed a nondescript porcelain object with unfathomable care and attention, turning it over in his fingers with squinty eyes, as if considering where to start the bidding.
It’s enterprise in the face of adversity and an encouraging story in all the gloom. If you find yourself in our neck of the woods, why not pop in (http://maps.google.com/maps?oe=UTF-8&sourceid=navclient&gfns=1&q=E1+6JJ&um=1&ie=UTF-8&split=0&ei=Fe3MSbn2GuHKjAfTssnSCQ&sa=X&oi=geocode_result&resnum=1&ct=title) and see him; you never know when you might need a spare shoe.
source (http://launchlab.co.uk/article/Entrepreneurial-Columnists/Homeless-guy-starts-a-shop-from-nothing/835)
There’s a homeless guy near our offices who has taken it upon himself fight both his circumstances and the recession to make a break for a better life.
At a guess he’s in his forties or fifties, but having (we suspect) been on the streets for some time, looks considerably older. His face and clothes are ragged and grubby and he wears a defeated look.
But he is far from that.
East London has lots of old buildings which sit vacant and dilapidated. He has chosen a plot in front of a particularly large, dark and ominous-looking edifice on Shoreditch High Street - to set up what can only be described as a ‘shop’.
I doubt his documents are in order or that he pays the rents and taxes forked out to Her Majesty’s agents by HMV or Marks and Spencer; but to their credit the authorities have so far turned a blind eye.
This could be, at least in part, because none of his merchandise is stolen. It can't be. To be honest it’s rubbish.
There’s a range of mismatched clothes that hang from a wire fence. In the ‘window’ there’s an old fan (which may or may not be broken), a collection of deflated footballs, a toaster, old shoes (pairs and singles), small indefinable ornaments and plenty more jumble besides.
His ‘stock’ is probably assembled from the contents of bins, rejected charity shop items and things he just finds. What’s surprising is that the new store seems to be doing fairly well.
When I passed today, three or four people were browsing. A lady who picked up a pair of crumpled boots seemed genuinely frustrated to discover they weren’t her size. “Do you have any more in the back?” I heard her nearly ask.
Meanwhile a man eyed a nondescript porcelain object with unfathomable care and attention, turning it over in his fingers with squinty eyes, as if considering where to start the bidding.
It’s enterprise in the face of adversity and an encouraging story in all the gloom. If you find yourself in our neck of the woods, why not pop in (http://maps.google.com/maps?oe=UTF-8&sourceid=navclient&gfns=1&q=E1+6JJ&um=1&ie=UTF-8&split=0&ei=Fe3MSbn2GuHKjAfTssnSCQ&sa=X&oi=geocode_result&resnum=1&ct=title) and see him; you never know when you might need a spare shoe.
source (http://launchlab.co.uk/article/Entrepreneurial-Columnists/Homeless-guy-starts-a-shop-from-nothing/835)