Eureka Crafts, 210 Walton St., is one of
the pioneers of Armory Square, which for those of you too young to
remember, was at one time a rundown warehouse district and not at all
the vibrant, big-city neighborhood it is today. “We didn’t mean to be,”
Cunningham said about the pioneer label, adding that they remained
profitable in the face of rising, gentrification rents by purchasing
the building they occupy today, in 1985. “The only loan we’ve ever
taken out is a mortgage for this building,” Cunningham said; it has
since been paid off.
The group expanded the shop’s floor
space three times over those 25 years, and founders either died or sold
their shares of Eureka, until Cunningham and Parker became co-owners.
As a result, they rarely get to be hands-on with their craft
anymore—Cunningham’s wooden boxes and Parker’s ceramics. Parker
especially would like that to change. “I’d like to see my own work back
on the shelves before I quit,” she said.
Meanwhile, she and Cunningham tend to
the Armory Square location, as well as the 3-year-old store at 8188
Cazenovia Road, Manlius. “The closest either of us has had to a vision
for Eureka Crafts was when Tom talked about expanding to Manlius,”
Parker noted. “I had a feeling we were doing as much as we could at
this location,” Cunningham said of Armory Square. “It’s still growing,
but not as much anymore. There are limitations to the amount of
customers we could get at this location. So my thought was to have a
suburban location that didn’t have those limitations.
“There are thousands of people in the
suburbs who have never come into the city and who will never come into
the city,” Cunningham continued, “and also who would support us at a
suburban location. The area between Manlius and Cazenovia is growing,
so I thought, let’s take the mountain to Mohammed.”
The Manlius store is smaller than Armory
Square’s, and the clientele and inventory are different as well. It
carries more flat art—paintings and mirrors, for example, that people
purchase to decorate their homes. Eureka east also carries paintings
from popular landscape artist Ellen Haffar (wife of New Times
columnist Ed Griffin-Nolan). “I thought we would be able to do more
interior work for people,” Parker said, “not only provide them with the
nifty-gifty environment that this has turned into. Out there, we did
the interior of the place ourselves. Here, it’s always been piecemeal,
you need space, you knock out a wall. Out there, we had a blank space,
and now it’s very lovely. It’s like a real store.”
But some would also say the Armory
Square location is more than a store, even as it remains real. “I feel
really good about this place most of the time,” explained Parker. “It’s
so much more than what people see when they walk in the door because of
all the people and all the years that are behind it. We are trying to
run this place in a way that honors the artists. Trying to live an
alternative lifestyle that has some integrity; that’s a really
important thing.”
Added Cunningham: “What we’re doing and
what our customers are doing is supporting that lifestyle, buying a
piece of that lifestyle. There are people running factories where
crafts are made who we don’t purchase from because that’s not us.”
Everyone is invited to witness the
Eureka lifestyle this Saturday, Oct. 25, when the store officially
celebrates its 25 years in Armory Square by selling any item at both
stores at 25 percent off. “That’s big,” Parker said, “because we don’t
have sales.” Then from 6 to 9 p.m., at the Armory Square location only,
enjoy refreshments and the fiddle music of Tom and Deb Hourican. Store
hours for Saturday are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. in Manlius, and 10 a.m. to 9
p.m. in Armory Square. For more information, call 471-4601.
—Molly English-Bowers
