story

"This is a hub that brings all of that together, makes it like a melting pot for all different types of sneaker culture and fashion culture."

"My name's Danny Waserstein, owner of Shoe Gallery. My role here is a little bit of everything, either on the floor, in the back-end, could be everything from buying to creative. Think of it as being like a DJ, and you're just mixing it up..."

"...day in and day out. My name is Remmy Rivera. I'm kind of the OG here, the young OG. I'm the Creative Director in the house. And I'm Roberto Genao..."

"...I'm the content creator for SG amongst other things. I would say that the first introduction to sneaker culture was just the culture kind of coming to us. My true passion was just being on the store floor and interacting with the people."

"This is a hub that brings all of that together, makes it like a melting pot for all different types of sneaker culture and fashion culture and to help elevate it to see how we could tap in..."

"...what we could do for our community and how we could all do it together. It's multiple creatives and we try to become a big team and get everybody involved. I would say, sneaker culture kind of like really brought together..."

"...important human relationships that happen in the shop. When 
you have something in common with somebody else, back then, 
the Air Max 95 was like my passionate shoe. That was like my 
first shoe. I wanted to start like collecting..."

"...and there was somebody else maybe that wanted, that had that 
same passion for that same model and those were connections, 
human connections that were happening from within. So from 
being on the sales floor, interacting with the community, with my
consumers..."

"...it was a human to human connection that just kind of like opened 
my horizons to just networking, meeting people and just growing 
the business. Sneaker culture over the years has been growing 
incredibly."

"Sneaker culture, I would say real hardcore, started getting into it like 2005, yo, that long ago. It's been that long. 2005 getting into the forums, boom, forums, Nike Talk. Someone in my class that was older than me put me onto Nike Talk..."

"...and that's really what got me into it. Campouts were it too, but then you had Shoe Gallery where you knew like a niche demographic would come through the doors and you would see some heat on the feet. Then like Danny brought up, you would have those conversations with those people that you aligned with through the product that they had on..."

"...and you would experience that in spaces like Shoe Gallery. So back before Instagram and all that, Shoe Gallery had that vibe, and I believe, I still feel till this day we still have that energy radiating."

"We've been here for a lot of years. 1979, we got OGs in the building, like Leo. He's really tapped into the streets from a street level, also from like a personal guidance level. Everyone just comes in. There's a lot of bosses come in here and we learn. Everyone's spitting game..."

"...you learn. You come to Shoe Gallery, you have your eyes and ears open. You're going to hear some stuff. You're going to see some stuff. You're going to learn. It's a lot of games, a lot of gems that are dropped in here. That's what I feel is different from other stores.The legacy of Shoe Gallery is just being that neighborhood store."

"It's being that store that connects to the people, connects to our communities, having open arms, people walking in, enjoying the human to human interactions, that's what we're known for."

Talking Shop: Shoe Gallery Part 1 — The Shop

Talking Shop

Shoe Gallery Part 1 —The Shop