This story was originally published by Capital B Gary.
By Rayonna Burton-Jernigan
Capital B Gary
December 19, 2024
A quiet, cold air settled over the nearly abandoned shopping center in Gary, broken only by the faint creak of a door and the muted sounds of its lone open shop. Down the hallway, the squeak of worn soles echoed as customers hurried toward Anthony Rayford’s shoe repair shop, where he worked alone.
“It’s a shame what happened to this place,” one customer said, handing Rayford several pairs of shoes.
The hallway felt as cold as winter itself, but Rayford kept three heaters around his workspace at Anthony’s Shoe Repair to warm himself and his customers.
“I’m providing heat to accommodate myself and my customers so I can keep it moving,” Rayford said. Despite the bleak surroundings, his glass case was stacked with orders he promised to return within days.
The Village, once a thriving shopping center in Glen Park, had seen better days. Yet, it remained home to Rayford’s craft. Surrounded by glass cases filled with shoes, purses, and belts, his skilled hands moved with precision, pouring decades of expertise into serving his community. In a space where the remnants of lost prosperity lingered in every corner, Rayford had created a workshop that restored worn-out items and instilled a sense of worth and purpose.
His work proved that even in decline, purpose could endure.
Originally from the West Side of Chicago, Rayford grew up surrounded by the art of shoe repair.
His father and three uncles were shoemakers who taught the trade at Dunbar High School, a vocational high school on the South Side of Chicago. The oldest among his brothers and cousins, and wanting to preserve the family legacy, he became the only one to learn the trade.
When he came home from school, he went to the shop to learn how to shine shoes, make leather bags, and repair shoes. Once he was old enough, his father told him it was time to earn money for the skills he was learning.
“It’s a craft that I enjoy,” he said. “This is my passion.”
After that, he managed all the stores for Sam the Shoe Doctor and other shoe repair shops around the city. With a background in business management, he knew he wanted to open his own business.
“It set in for me not to work for anyone,” he said through laughter. Seeing how much the city was changing, especially as a father of five boys, he looked into multiple places to settle and open his business.
And in 2015, that’s what led him to move to Gary.
When Rayford launched Anthony’s Shoe Repair at the Market City Flea Market on Cleveland Avenue, he started small — shining shoes to prove his skills to the local community.
“Sometimes you have to start from the bottom in order to get back to where you need to be, and that’s what I did,” Rayford said.
Without financial assistance, he relied on his faith to guide him.
“I have a very close relationship with God, and that relationship with God has no limitation with what I want to accomplish,” he said.
After seeing a machine needed for shoe repair on sale, he drove over 70 miles to start the next part of his plan.
Putting the machine in his garage, he’d take shoes from the market and work on them with the proper materials that could show the full extent of his expertise. For almost a year, he’d take home shoes that people brought to him and work on them after hours to build a client base in the city. Working quickly, he’d have shoes returned to clients by the next week so they wouldn’t have to wait as long for repairs.
“People saw that I had the talent, and they were very impressed with my work,” he said. “[They] had a lot of trust [in me] and knew that I wasn’t going anywhere with their shoes.”
Through his work, extensive marketing, and word of mouth, he began to build a steady clientele. Despite summer being his slow season, the community brings enough to keep him busy.
Wanting to expand and have a more prominent location to do more work, he started looking at locations in the city that would be accessible to community members. The Village seemed like the perfect place.
Built in 1955 as a thriving economic hub, The Village once boasted major retailers like JCPenney, Kroger, and Montgomery Ward. Even into the 1990s and early 2000s, it remained lively with stores like Foot Locker, Footaction, and the popular suit shop Tom Olesker’s, which once hosted Chicago Cubs Hall of Famer Ernie Banks, who famously threw baseballs off the roof. Other shops, including Rainbow, Radio Shack, and a nail salon, kept the center bustling with activity.
But over the past decade, The Village has sunk into a state of quiet desolation, its once-bustling corridors now mostly vacant spaces. Today, the shopping center has dwindled to six shops: a children’s dentist office, a hot dog store, a truck driving school, an Ashley Stewart, a dry cleaner, and Rayford’s shoe repair.
Having seen the evolution of the shopping center, Rayford knew that he wanted a location that needed a little TLC and could be a central location for customers. He moved into The Village just before the pandemic and gained clients looking for a new shoe repairman.
When it came to attracting new customers and expanding the business, he adhered to two ideologies: keeping his business in Gary and helping every customer.
His shop offers everything from heel repair to shoe stretching to zippers on shoes, bags, and other garments.
“It’s basically keeping something in the community that helped you along the way,” he stated proudly. “Gary supported my business, and I would not take it out of Gary.”
In his eyes, if it’s not broken, then why fix it? He’d have to establish himself and redo all the work he has put into his shop. And at 62, he wants to focus on doing as much work as possible and ensuring every customer feels supported and satisfied.
“There’s a lot that I deal with being a business owner, but it’s always a common courtesy that you have to display as an owner,” Rayford said. “You got people that don’t always agree with you, but I don’t argue with them. It’s whatever you need me to do.”
Being in the business long enough, he knows it’s easier to resolve the issue and perform the service than going back and forth. Being able to deal with people and how you communicate with them has allowed him to keep his head, even during times of frustration.
“You just have to know what you’re talking about and give them what they want, but not doing it to the point where it’s going to cost you,” he said.
On any given day, he can see dozens of customers who keep his workshop full of materials that he hopes to return to them by the end of the week. With winter being his busiest time, he sometimes has to come in earlier or stay late to ensure everything is finished.
“When a person brings a pair of shoes in here to me, I don’t care if they’re the regularest shoes on the block — You ask me to fix them, I’m gonna fix them,” he said.
Luckily or unluckily, as his business grows and he is not one to turn down a project, he is now at the point where he needs help.
Rayford hopes to pass his craft to the next generation, but only one of his sons has shown interest in joining him in the shop. Just as his father taught him to earn money through shoemaking, Rayford is determined to pass this legacy on.
“That’s always another way of elevating yourself: teaching somebody else how to do something that you have a passion for,” he said.
Rayford noticed his son’s interest in hydro-dipping, a technique for adding intricate designs to athletic shoes. Inspired, he taught himself how to airbrush shoes and practiced on a friend’s pair.
Impressed with his son’s skills, he’s making it his mission to continue this legacy with him.
“It’s about reaching one soul, and then that one soul can convince his friends to try it,” he said.
In addition to teaching within the family, he hopes to teach other youth in the community this trade as well. Whether through winning a grant to teach the trade or following the path that the ones before him did, he hopes to expand this passion to everyone.
“If you’re willing to learn and you want to get into it, put your all into it,” he said. “It’s not an in-between because you will be faced with some things.”
For Rayford, shoemaking is more than a skill — it’s an art form.
“A true shoemaker can take a shoe apart and put it back together without hassle,” he said with pride.
Rayonna Burton-Jernigan is the Business and Economic Development reporter for Capital B Gary.
