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Jeweler Relocates And Reinvents Itself After September 11

  • September 10, 2011 at 8:50 pm

Carl and Milly Gandia were just opening their shop, Greenwich Jewelers, for the day when the first plane struck the World Trade Center just a few short blocks away in new York’s Financial District.

As the sirens started and panic spread outside, Carl Gandia took the time to do what every jeweler methodically does before leaving the store: He opened the showcases, removed the jewelry trays and locked them away in a safe. In the chaos that ensued outside, the couple became separated but each found their way home to Brooklyn, one through the help of a friendly motorist and another via ferry. It was eight hours before the rest of the family found out that Carl was unharmed.

“They were really lucky,” says Jennifer Gandia, 37, who now co-owns the store with her sister, Christina Gandia Gambale, 29. “My father just put everything away and they closed the doors.”

But that was just the beginning of the drama for the small business that the Gandia family started 35 years ago, when they purposely chose a location near the Twin Towers, a hub for financial-industry workers. and it was the start of a dramatic change in how the Gandias did business, owing to the revolutionary shift that’s developed over the last decade toward social networking and ecommerce.

Sisters Step In

Soon, the elder Gandias returned to find the street closed to all but emergency personnel and a business that had lost 70 percent of its customer base when the Twin Towers collapsed. Some of their customers who worked in the area relocated to new offices. others, sadly, died during the attacks.

Although their shop was spared significant damage, Gandias was forced to close because it sat next to the heavily damaged Deutsche Bank building. Carl and Milly drove around the city to deliver jewelry and watches left for repairs and cleaning back to clients they considered family.

The Gandias were determined both to keep the business and to remain near Wall Street, so when a lease opened up at 64 Trinity Place, just a few blocks from their old location, they jumped on it. They had, by then, gone 10 months without a storefront.

“Their customers were gone, and they basically had to build a new business,” Jennifer says.”With all the incentives [after September 11] to have people move into the neighborhood to live, this changed from a commercial district to a residential district.”

At the time, Jennifer was working in fashion PR, and Christina had a job in finance. At their parents’ insistence, the two had been encouraged to go to school and find the careers of their dreams. but gradually, the sisters found themselves pulled into the familiarity of the family business—and their mom and dad were happy for the help.

With her marketing background, Jennifer knew that she could help her parents reach out to new customers beyond the Financial District. By 2003, she left PR, and by the next year, her involvement grew even further. meanwhile, Christina had left finance and became a certified gemologist. she worked for a jewelry manufacturing company, learning about the business from the wholesale side—which provided great insight into how retail worked.

The sisters, who took over managing Greenwich Jewelers from their parents in 2007 and took ownership in 2010 after their parents retired, made a number of changes to help the business adapt to the new realities after September 11.

For one, they changed the store hours from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays to 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.—a more conducive schedule to the growing number of neighborhood residents who moved to the area to take advantage of rent incentives and who like to shop after work. Then they added Saturdays to better cater to those outside the area and the tourists who converged to see the Financial District and Ground Zero, where the World Trade Center was being reconstructed.

Jeweler Relocates And Reinvents Itself After September 11

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