Fantastic but Getting Better.  Want to see nine happy faces? Click on the photo at right. It's a shot of the crew of Newmark & Lewis' Greenwich Village store on a day when, to borrow a phrase from Zig Ziglar, things were fantastic but getting better. This is a crew I had trained several years earlier when I was their store manager and then, at the time of the photo, supervised as their district manager. It was a very productive crew that proved that people of good will of many different backgrounds could work together in "joyful harmony". So why was my motley crew whooping it up? Well, I'll get to that in a moment. First, let me set the scene.

Residents of the New York metropolitan area (New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut) will recognize the name on this Park Ave, Manhattan storefront -- Newmark & Lewis. This appliance and electronics retailer had begun operations on Long Island in the 20's and grew to prominence as the dominant chain in the northeast. The store in the photo, taken one gray Saturday morning, was one of several I managed in my twelve-year career with Newmark & Lewis, and one of hundreds I eventually supervised (not all at once, of course).

On the day I photographed the Park Ave store, we were celebrating the Grand Opening of seventeen new stores in New Jersey. (When you click on the photo at right you'll see G.O. sale banners hanging from the dropped ceiling -- and Scotty, the high school student who regularly outsold our full-time salesmen, making fun of me as usual.) The "new" stores were the former Brick Church chain, which Newmark & Lewis acquired and which I was eventually asked to run when the acquired management proved ineffective.

Unfortunately, the Brick Church stores, which were going bankrupt when they were purchased, eventually contributed to the Chapter 11 bankruptcy of Newmark & Lewis. Good management can't overcome bad locations when money is tight. And so after helping a company grow from a dozen stores, when I was hired, to over two hundred at their zenith, I spent the last year of my N & L career closing stores.

And that brings me to why the crew in the photo at the top of this page was smiling. It's because they had learned the benefits of a positive attitude -- they knew that any day you wake up above ground is a good day. And that included the day on which I took their picture. On that day they had just cleaned out their Greenwich Village store with plans to get up bright and early the next day -- to stand on the unemployment line.

What I did after Newmark & Lewis and a brief, head-clearing stop at another local retailer, was to start Installations Plus+ (now a part of SERVENET.COM), where a part of my work is designing webpages. The Inwood Journal makes a stop in The Webshop@servenet.com on the next page.

7/14/2004

Maria Remembers

Newmark & Lewis, the appliance and electronic retailer is gone, but clearly not forgotten. A few days ago, Maria Mirabella, one of the mainstays of the N&L headquarters staff, wrote after reading this page about having a positive attitude at N&L. Maria's email is quoted below with her kind permission.

Mr. Bruno,

I was thinking of old days, back when I LOVED where I worked and whom I worked for and so out of curiousity I typed in Newmark & Lewis. I came across your page and was delighted to see it. I remember your name well. I was Russell Graham and Peter Lewis' assistant. I just wanted to tell you seeing it's name on line added joy to my heart. I had worked there for close to 10 years myself and was one of the last to leave (even after Peter told me to get out quickly). I always thought Peter, Russ and I would retire together. Thanks for the up-lift. I'm sure I'm not the only one who has spotted it and felt the same.

Sincerely,
Maria Mirabella

The pundits may argue about the reason for Newmark & Lewis' demise, but the reason for its long and outsized success is clear. Its people cared. And that came from the top down, as somewhat facetiously captured in the frequently lampooned advertising slogan, "Dick Lewis is watching." Like Maria, I really liked working at N&L, and I, too, stayed to the end.

If my reminiscences and Maria's trigger yours, let me know. If there's enough interest, an N&L Forum might be in the cards.