Miracle Trading, the odd-lot shop that has been on Warren since 1979, will close for good at the end of the month. By my estimation, this will leave only Church Street Surplus left among Tribeca’s original retail tenants – and it’s a loss. I have been meaning to get into the store to do a Spotlight feature, and here we are, writing a storefront obituary instead. But the recollections here from Shimon Zlotnikov, whose parents, Fruma and Igor, founded the store — his mother is still there every day — are worth a read.

Shimon hands over the keys on August 31, his 51st birthday, to the new tenant — a medical office.

The portrait is by Zvi Zlotnikov, Shimon’s 10-year-old son, who inherited his grandfather’s entrepreneurial spirit.

How did you get started in this business?
My parents came to the US when I was 4 and a half months old – they were both chemical engineers from the former Soviet Union. My dad started working for a Japanese company that then moved to North Carolina, so he was out of a job. A neighbor of ours who was a closeout dealer of coffee table books gave my father some employment. Dad was a former heavy weightlifter in the Ukraine, so he could lift heavy things.

My dad within a few days got an offer by a person who owned one of the shops on Warren. Then he became the manager. Then he bought the business. When we moved to 28 Warren in 1986, he bought the building. [At one time, Miracle Trading operated three storefronts on Warren – numbers 12, 27 and 28.]

At that time Warren Street was the off-price capital of Manhattan. 20 Warren was where the first transistor radio was sold in the US. B&H started at 17 Warren [in 1973]. There were eight stores between Broadway and Church that sold returns, overruns, damaged merchandise, second-time-around items. Everyone from the Tri-State area used to come here. Families would get dressed up and drive in from Connecticut to Warren Street with three generations in the car – the grandparents, the kids and their kids.

What did you sell?
This place is a hidden gem. You dig through the stuff and you never know what you’ll find. Over the years, we’ve had everything. We had car parts. We had luggage. We had clothes. At one point my family was the return department for one of the largest luggage companies in the US. We would get everything from a single wheel — with nothing attached to it — to a full set.

How did the business work? Who did what?
Dad was back-office making the buys. He would make nine really bad purchases and mom was in the front trying to squeeze out a profit on that 10th item to make up for the rest.

When they arrived here they had $70 in their pocket and didn’t speak English. And with the help of a graduate student from NYU social work – our neighbor in Canarsie who set my father up with his first job – they built a life. I will never forget him or their family or their shaggy dog.

They worked really hard, all the time. Seven days a week. My father’s philosophy was: if we have to pay rent for this day, we are working for this day.

When did you join the business?
46 years ago! [Shimon is almost 51 – he was 4 when his parents opened the shop.] I am an only child. At my college graduation, my father showed up legally blind from diabetes. I knew I had to come home and help my parents. And I never left. (I was a biology major on a premed track at BU, but very early on through volunteering at Boston Children’s Hospital and from being really bad in genetics class, I realized medicine — even though I loved it — it wasn’t going to be for me.)

I worked in the store my whole life. I caught my first shoplifter standing on a 6-foot ladder yelling, “Mom, he put a comb in his back pocket!”

My father’s boss gave me my first let’s call it a paycheck. He gave me two rolls of quarters, one roll of nickels and two rolls of pennies. I remember being very upset when my mom needed change and gave me bills and thought my earnings had been taken away from me.

Who shops with you?
Everyone. We’ve had mayors shop at the store, tourists, regulars. We have city workers who don’t shop here anymore but they still check in on mom to see how she’s doing. It was almost all regulars until a few years ago. I’m talking about people who were in here a lot, not just once a month. I knew some of them better than some of my closest relatives.

There was one family, the dad was about 6’3. When they first started coming in, he would have his daughter riding on his shoulders. Eventually he couldn’t duck low enough to get her through the door. Then she was walking in on her own. Years later, she comes in after college graduation and I will tell you they have a very, very close resemblance. I said, “Maya?” And we hugged and cried. I felt very old. I had known this girl since she was a month or two old. Recently she came in with her daughter.

Tell me a good customer story.
We used to sell loose Goldtoe socks in a bin outside the store — anywhere from four pairs for a dollar to 10 pairs for a dollar. We had State Supreme Court justices on their lunch hour matching up socks.

I happened to be outside one day when Rudy Giuliani was walking by and Rudy said to his security detail, “I need some socks — can you match me up a pair or two?” Rudy knew who I was, but he was a Moe Ginsburg guy — he told me he didn’t cheat on Moe. But once in a while he would duck in.

Bloomberg helped monumentally during 9/11. Depending on the day, we were either on the right side of the street to get some assistance or the wrong side to get some assistance. A few days after, I happened to go on ABC Radio and I mention this problem. About 10 or 15 minutes after I hang up, I get a phone call. The person on the line starts telling me about all the assistance and where I could get it. I wasn’t going to interrupt — and I was a little frazzled with everything that was going on. But I finally said, “So, who is this?” And he said, “This is Mayor Mike.”

How did the store do in 9/11?
When 9/11 happened there were 20 people waiting in line to use mom’s store phone to call their loved ones. Every single year until a few years ago, those families would come every September 11th to say hello and check up on mom. Most have now moved away, but we still get correspondence with letters and pictures from them.

How has it been working alongside your parents all these years?
When my father passed away [in December 2000] I was 25 years old. Two weeks later my uncle passed away, and two weeks after that my father’s uncle passed away. They all worked in the business. I went from being a kid who couldn’t use a screwdriver to being the primary person in the business.

Growing up I was in the passenger seat of the truck when my father picked up the merchandise. I saw how he made deals, I saw how he made friends, I saw how he made relationships. That’s how I learned.

But working with mom, seeing mom every day, I am very blessed. Some people live on the other side of the world from their parents. I am also very lucky that I have a family business, so I was able to be there for many of my son’s milestones.
Mom is a tough cookie. She’s battle-worn. She still takes the train in every day from Brooklyn and she still sells. I like to joke: the merchandise is free, you pay for the entertainment. The haggle. The let’s make a deal.

We like to joke that this is the Family World Headquarters. We start everything here.

Tell me another customer story!
Ok, so one of the things we used to sell were shirts from Paul Fredrick – and newscasters loved them. When you watched the Today Show, the company’s name would be on at the end. Steve Bartelstein, the news anchor at WABC-TV [from 1999 to 2007] came in and saw we had them for $10. These shirts were previously monogrammed. He took 10.

He comes in later for more shirts, and I say, “What are you doing with so many shirts?” and he says, “Lori [Stokes, his co-anchor] and Lee [Goldberg, the chief meteorologist] and I play this game every day, and the game is, Who Am I Today?” Steve would make up names based on the monogram on the shirt and they would have to guess them. I happened to bump into Lori years later and asked if she played a game guessing the monogram, and she just started laughing. And she said, “That was your shop? There were so many stories about your sweet mother.”

There are so many stories. So many people. These are the good stories. Then there are all the stories that involve the First Precinct.

Why are you closing? What happened?
Um, the internet? When you grow up in whatever conditions you grew up in, it becomes part of you. The time to move onto the next chapter was probably much much earlier. But we definitely were blessed and fortunate to have owned our real estate so we could absorb a lot of the costs and expenses that most retail businesses couldn’t. You take those kind of things for granted.

But one day your wife says, “We are outgrowing our space. Our child is getting older. We have more needs that need to be filled. You’re not getting any younger and you’re still pushing the weight of the merchandise on your back.” There are sources I have that are three hours away and I have to drive there before the crack of dawn so I am opening the store on time.
I am still doing it and I am still enjoying it. It’s the thrill of the find. The art of the deal. My father would first walk into a place and they would call security. A couple hours later he would walk out with the owner’s arm around my dad’s shoulder. There’s a certain level of shtick and chutzpah that you need to survive in this business. Thank god my son inherited his mother’s looks because his father’s shtick is definitely rubbing off on him.

Are you ready for the last day?
I don’t know if it’s hit me yet – especially since I still have a lot of merchandise to move! But it’s definitely a feel-good story. Honestly? My parents brought me here at 4 and a half months old. They put us up in the Gramercy Park Hotel when we arrived. My parents thought this was a four-star hotel. A few years later, we had three storefronts on the block. We probably could have opened up a couple dozen more locations.

Are you selling the building?
When I was 5 years old, I would run around every single one of the buildings downtown and try to sell my crayon drawings. Back then, most of the buildings were filled with offices or very light industrial or artists. I would make a couple of dollars. I knew everyone in most of these buildings. I only had to be back by 6p to drive home.

So that is to say…I’m attached. This is my identity. My son plays on a sports team and his number is 28. So I’ll let him make that decision.

What will your mother do with her time?
We still have two basements – my father used to joke that he bought the building so my mother could have two 2500-square-foot rooms to fill with her stuff. He wasn’t far off. We still have people coming in looking for mom. For her, not having another agenda — it will give her a chance to remember the good times. Kvetch a little. Not worry about the next bill, the next buy, the next event. For many years, my parents only knew two dates: the 1st and the 15th. Rent and taxes, rent and taxes.

And who knows. She may be the next eBay queen. Right now, it’s: mom, you haven’t had a vacation in forever. She’s been talking to my wife about places she wants to see.

My parents sacrificed a lot for me. She deserves everything and more.