<\/p>\n
Terry wanted to sell Notre Dame<\/span><\/strong> paraphernalia from an empty store I had across from St. James Church.\u00a0 He had just come back from South Bend, Ind., with a carload of merchandise.\u00a0 [Terry isn’t his real name.]<\/p>\n He sang in two church choirs, knew the bishop, and knew the town’s development director, Kelly.\u00a0 He knew the mayor too, FitzGerald.\u00a0\u00a0 And probably knew the former building director, Fitzgerald.<\/p>\n Terry wanted the rent lowered.<\/p>\n I couldn’t figure out if he had any money.<\/p>\n He kept talking choirs.\u00a0 He sang in two — St. Ignatius and St. Malachi.\u00a0 That wasn’t money.<\/p>\n I told him my building manager <\/strong>sang<\/span><\/span> in a choir too — a Ukrainian one. “Call the manager to see the inside of the store,” I said. “He lives in an apartment right above the store.”<\/p>\n “You own the apartments above too?” Terry said.\u00a0 “I’m looking for a place.”<\/p>\n That was a bad.\u00a0 Maybe Terry’s car trunk had all his worldly possessions, plus the Notre Dame gear.<\/p>\n I told him I had a vacancy upstairs. “Too bad about Notre Dame’s final twenty-two seconds against Michigan,” I said.<\/p>\n He didn’t want to talk football.\u00a0 I couldn’t blame him . . . Michigan and Notre Dame.<\/p>\n Terry didn’t rent — the store or the apartment.<\/p>\n I’ve only had a couple commercial <\/strong>tenants<\/span><\/span> who also lived in the building.\u00a0 I had a photographer who lived in the basement of his shop.\u00a0 That was free living quarters. The photographer installed a dishwasher, stall shower and kitchen. \u00a0\u00a0He was down there for decades, and the city never looked.\u00a0 That photographer should have had a bumpsticker: “Thank God I’m a Morlock.”\u00a0 (In the 1980s, ethnic bumperstickers were a fad in Cleveland. “Thank God I’m Slovenian” was the most popular, I think.\u00a0 “Thank God I’m Jewish” was special order.)<\/p>\n I had a barber who lived over her store. \u00a0She paid extra.\u00a0 Her store had a window sign: “Fighter Chick Parking Only.”\u00a0 She was a lesbian Puerto Rican cage fighter who got along with everybody.\u00a0 (She’s still there, but doesn’t live in the apartment.)<\/p>\n I had a Chinese tenant who lived beneath his meditation and “healing arts” studio. \u00a0He lasted 10 years.\u00a0 (He didn’t live under the store all those years.\u00a0 Only after his divorce.)\u00a0\u00a0 If you develop a following, you can make it in a business like healing.\u00a0 Yoga is another field like that.\u00a0 Charisma-driven. \u00a0I have a yoga store that seems to be doing well.\u00a0 The owner is very outgoing.<\/p>\n I had a tenant who re-sold children’s toys.\u00a0 She left me a basement of orphaned Fisher-Price kids.\u00a0 A whole basement: the kids, plus broken schoolhouses, gas stations and school buses.\u00a0 Also, Little Tykes picnic tables and Big Wheels. \u00a0I wish she had left a Fisher-Price dump truck. Terry wanted to sell Notre Dame paraphernalia from an empty store I had across from St. James Church.\u00a0 He had just come back from South Bend, Ind., with a carload of merchandise.\u00a0 [Terry isn’t his real name.] He sang in two church choirs, knew the bishop, and knew the town’s development director, Kelly.\u00a0 He knew […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1054","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-landlord-biz","category-sports-pages"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1054","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1054"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1054\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12105,"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1054\/revisions\/12105"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n—<\/span>
\n2 <\/span>of 2<\/span> posts for 11\/25\/09<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"