Grand Island barber outlasts competition

by Karen Keefe
Grand Island Dispatch, June 8, 2007

Barber Marion Mancuso, right, his daughter, Arlene Clarke, also a barber, and Chuck Gaiser, left, a longtime customer. (photo by Karen Keefe)

When Marion Mancuso opened his barbershop at Grand Island Plaza 50 years ago, “They told me I wouldn’t last six months. I outlasted all of them,” he says. “Perseverance, hard work and dedication” is what he and his daughter, Arlene Clarke, say it takes to stay in business on Grand Island for a half century.

Mancuso was the plaza’s very first tenant in 1957. After him came the bank, a drug store, and 13 other stores – at its heyday growing to 25 businesses. Tenants of the plaza, first owned by Larry Grant, have changed over the years. But Mancuso – at 2370 Grand Island Blvd. – has been the rock-solid business that had the best staying power. His very first – and steadiest customer – was Grand Island supervisor Ray Griffin, who started out as a pharmacist at the very same plaza.

“You guys were the pioneers,” said dentist Grant Hennigar, who stopped by to congratulate Mancuso and his daughter. She has taken over the shop in recent years, herself a professional barber who was taught by the best. You guessed it – her dad! Hennigar remembers he was just a boy when the shop opened.

At first, Mancuso was commuting from Fredonia. He’d spend his nights on a cot in the back room. Then he moved to the Island with his wife, Lena, and their little daughter, Arlene.

Through all the hairstyles popular over the years Mancuso kept clipping, snipping and shaving his customers. At the height of the Beatles’ popularity barbers, including Mancuso, found much less demand for scissors, clippers or visits to the barbershop. “That was rough,” he remembers. “But you’ve got to stick it out through the hard times.”

He admits he resented it and wouldn’t yield to the new, longer styles. “I was stubborn. I couldn’t see it.” But then he went back to school to learn all the new ways. “I saw business going away, so I said ‘You better join the crowd.’ ” He also taught for six years at Roberts barber school in downtown Buffalo. He is happy that styles have come full circle, with the “regular” haircut quite popular again.

One thing Mancuso has not yielded to is adding women to his clientele. It just wouldn’t be the same banter from the barber to the customer, and from chair to chair, he points out. “It’s strictly a man’s barbershop. They want to be free to say what they want to say,” he explains.

In recent years, Mancuso has had health problems. Five years ago, he decided to retire. That had Arlene worried. “Oh, my God, where am I going to go for a haircut?” was her first reaction. She and her husband Gillman, a town employee, have two boys, Cody, 22, and Sam, 12. Arlene worked for 20 years for the Town Recreation Department. She knew it was time for a change, and she knew what she had to do.

She apprenticed for two years with her dad, and became a licensed barber. When she took her test, she recalled that the examiner remarked: “I don’t know who taught you, but I can’t duplicate that haircut.” She follows a tradition set not only by her father, but also three of his brothers, who also were barbers.

Being a licensed barber requires doing “a haircut, shave, shampoo and massage – all in one hour. I did it in about 45 minutes,” she says.

Being a barber used to include surgery and blood-letting, as well, hence the red and white barber pole, signifying the red of the blood and the white of the bandages, swirled in stripes. Originally, the bandages were hung out on the barber pole to dry, after washing. As the bandages blew in the wind, they would twist together to form the spiral pattern similar to the stripes. The blue was added after World War I, so tradition has it, possibly as a patriotic homage.

Although Mancuso didn’t practice surgery, he was accused, in jest, of “torturing your customers with indecent impersonations of Perry Como” and “uneven sideburns,” according to facetious proclamations issued at one of his previous anniversaries.

These days, he stops by the shop to visit with his daughter and customers, but life is a lot more leisurely, and has other joys. “Grandchildren are God’s gift to us for getting old,” he remarks, as well as “Having grandchildren is like falling in love again.”

He can’t stay away from the shop completely – the memories are fond ones. “The camaraderie was out of this world. That’s what I miss.”