Small Business Administration chief Maria Contreras-Sweet was in New York City yesterday to promote Small Business Saturday, which is Main Street’s bid for post-Thanksgiving shopping dollars. “What I like about shopping small is that you get a sense of the uniqueness of the community,” she said during a visit to Studio Manhattan, a shop on Mulberry Street in Little Italy that sells prints of iconic photographs on leather belts, wallets, and other materials.
Before she left, Contreras-Street bought a photograph of a street mural that had been printed on a small canvas. It read: “Change Your Life.” Store owner Ayhan Kimsesizcan, a native of Turkey who with his wife owns three Studio Manhattan shops, gave the SBA chief an early Small Business Saturday discount. It was a sweet scene, for the two reporters who witnessed it.
