Pandemic puts creativity to test
Black-owned businesses that grew Troy’s downtown switch offerings beyond retail
When Daniel Killion first moved to Troy he spent a lot of time down by the Hudson River. One day he found a stump with a rock embedded in it that he thought was strange and beautiful.
The unusual discovery began his career of making furniture, and other pieces like wooden wedding arches and driftwood lamps, out of reclaimed wood and driftwood. He partnered with local artists from Troy and Albany and started showing at gallery openings and flower shows, before opening his first retail shop in downtown Troy in 2011.
Killion’s store, Weathered Wood, is one of many Blackowned businesses that have contributed to the growth of downtown Troy. But because restaurants, retail and personal services have been some of the businesses hardest hit by the pandemic, and more often in Troy those types of businesses are owned by people of color, according to Katie Hammon, executive director of Downtown Troy Business Improvement District, they are having to get the most creative to outlast the pandemic.
“Looks like COVID could be the thing that takes us down,” Killion said. “If our landlord can’t give us half off rent then we will probably just close up shop.”
The retail space was valuable because its location placed Killion’s product in front of thousands of visitors coming for Troy’s farmers market each weekend, but this past summer the market moved to Riverfront Park. “I would set these arbors out in the streets on the farmers market and I would book like three weddings every week,” Killion said. “None of that happened. We just don’t have the money to give to (our landlord). Math is math.
“It’s been hard to justify paying somebody else to do business,” Killion said. “I can build stuff anywhere, I can build in my house if I need to, I don’t have to have this retail space.”
Spending $8,000 just to get to the summer and see what happens with retail in the pandemic is too high a risk for Killion. For others, like Eboni Edmundson, who owns So Beautiful Hair Salon, and has for 12 years, it is worth the wait.
“Getting your hair done is a luxury and I understand that,” Edmundson said. “That is why I have to be multitalented… I have so many irons in the fire that something is going to stay hot.”
Edmundson always offered
cosmetology classes, so this year she increased her classes and tutorials for how to treat and style hair online for her clients. One of her signature classes is a class for parents who adopt biracial children and want to learn more about how to treat and touch their hair.
It is important to Edmundson to educate her clients on how to take care of their hair themselves, which is why during the pandemic she wants to teach as much as possible.
“I feel if you're not going to come to me to get your hair done the right way, let me show you how to do it the right way. Because after all, I care about your hair,” Edmundson said.
Businesses that offer services beyond exclusively retail products are also having success. Patrick Harris opened Collective effort, his marketing agency and co-working space, in February, one month before the pandemic forced him to close. He was driven to create a space for artists, creatives, and entrepreneurs to come together for advertising and media consultations and community in a predominantly white area.
Despite having to close their co-working space for a few months during the pandemic, the group came together online to help their members create products and storytelling avenues that they never had done before: podcasts, live shows, and new pictures and websites for branding.
Harris is hopeful for the future because the possibilities of what his members could create grew in a different way, just online, during the pandemic. “If we are going to be spending more of our time online, I want to see people taking a chance on themselves and expressing themselves,” Harris said.
Unfortunately, some businesses, like Blendington’s Barber Shop and The Fade Factory, which is also a barbershop, have already closed. Hammon, the executive director of Downtown Troy Business Improvement District, said that the spaces that have become vacant during the pandemic because a business has folded have already filled up with new businesses wanting to open.
“There has been a lot of interest in Troy. We’ve also seen a lot of people moving here from New York City and from Boston,” Hammon said. “I do expect that some of the people who have recently moved here will eventually start their own businesses here.”