First of two parts
Almost without fear of quibble, it can be reported this afternoon that Gary Mandell, proprietor of Boulevard Music (http://boulevardmusic.com/) since the last century, is the canniest, grittiest, bravest, boldest businessman and philosopher in Culver City.
He would need all of those qualities to survive into this, his 10th, season as impresario, major domo, of the popular Culver City Summer Music Festival series. The annual lightning and thunder atmosphere at City Hall is so volatile every off-season that even a slightly weaker man would have drowned.
Or gone bridge-shopping.
Three weeks from tomorrow, Saturday, June 12, from 12 noon to 5, Mr. Mandell officially will establish himself as one of America’s Several Most Courageous Business Owners.
Boulevard Music is a retail. Music store, music school and almost weekly concert venue.
Tonight’s 8 o’clock attraction is Bill Staines, described as a New England folk legend, a balladeer. Tomorrow at 8, it is classical guitarist Michael Chapdelaine.
Boulevard Music, splendidly located on the longest street in Los Angeles, 4316 Sepulveda Blvd., celebrates its grand re-opening with a Martin Guitar Co. Souvenir Day.
Daringly, in the view of many but not the boss, Mr. Mandell expanded his prosperous business by building a second story, which largely accommodates teaching rooms.
He launched his expansion three years ago, as the recession was birthing. He is ready to begin a new era of considerable enlargement at a time when many peers are cowering, others already have been sidelined, and no two English-speaking economists know or agree on the state of the U.S. economy.
Question: How did you uncover the secret of the recession? How can you grow your space while others are contracting or fleeing?
“Two reasons,” Mr. Mandell said, straightforwardly, as ever. “My mother told me that during the Depression, people always had money for entertainment. No. 2, one of the last items parents ever will cut is music lessons for their kids. You can’t stop their growth.”
And then the smart, savvy, iron-willed entrepreneur emerged into the daylight as Mr. Mandell stopped before his freeway-accessible store.
“Now the recession has been going on for several years,” he said “Where other stores have raised their rates, we haven’t. We not only have the lowest rates around, we have some of the best teachers in town, 10 of them.”
Never without a pun at his fingertips, the balding Mr. Mandell gauged his expansion program at “three years— or 50,000 follicles ago.”
What was the original motivation for expanding?
“I had a flat roof, and we couldn’t fix it.
“I had five roofers come out, and when the architect said ‘I can design a flat roof that doesn’t leak,’ I said ‘This is the first and last time you are ever going to hear me say this. I am never going to have a flat roof on this building, ever again.’
“What I have done is add on several teaching rooms and storage areas.”
By now, Mr. Mandell was fully warmed up.
We calculate that you started your building program just as the international recession was beginning. Why then?
“There really wasn’t a big recession going on then. The world is filled with followers. People who want to succumb to 9-11 and let the terrorists dictate that we all roll over and die, can do that.
“I do not subscribe to that theory.
“This recession is not going to last forever. A lot of it was perception. I can prove that just by the fact that people come in to make a purchase, and they say, ‘You guys must be doing great.’ I say, ‘I don’t know. Are we?’ People get that impression, though, just because you are adding on.
“They just assume.
“I have said several times over the last year that General Motors could have saved a lot of money if they had just bought all of the newspapers and fired everybody. Stop telling everybody how bad it is. That made it much worse than it was. Not that there wasn’t an international recession going on.
“People read how bad it is, and they stop buying cars. When you do that, you put all the people on the assembly line out of work, the people who make the parts, people who ship the parts, on and on. It just snowballs.”
(To be continued)
