((PKG)) BIKER GARAGE
((TRT: 07:14))
((Topic Banner: Parking Proudly))
((Reporter: Anna Nelson))
((Camera: Vladimir Badikov))
((Editor: Natalia Latukhina))
((Map: New York City, New York))
((Main characters: 2 male))
((NATS))
((Ronnie Pichson
Co-Owner, Gotham Depo Moto Storage))
We want you to feel the service and to almost like, you know, you came into a nice hotel, or you saw a great butcher.
((NATS))
((Stefon Davis
Co-Owner, Gotham Depo Moto Storage))
Yeah, it is denim and still keeping it fashion forward.
((NATS))
((Ronnie Pichson
Co-Owner, Gotham Depo Moto Storage))
It's sad to say that COVID affected our lives in a good way. I worked for Calvin Klein. I was in their sportswear division.
((NATS))
((Courtesy: Calvin Klein))
I was in charge of fit for blouses. My job, I had dealt with a fit model and it was
((Ronnie Pichson
Co-Owner, Gotham Depo Moto Storage))
very intimate and it was very close. And the fit model would leave us and go to the Gap and leave the Gap and go to Nordstrom's and leave there. So the industry all of a sudden looked at the fit model and said, “She's a [COVID] super spreader. You can't do this anymore.”
((Stefon Davis
Co-Owner, Gotham Depo Moto Storage))
I’m, basically, his competitor, was his competitor. I worked for a privately owned company. My position was design and fabric, design and research, research and design. So it got a little crazy and working in the house so we had to kind of designate areas. He worked in the kitchen. I worked in the living room. It was tight but we managed through it until we were told that we were officially let go from the company.
((NATS))
((Ronnie Pichson
Co-Owner, Gotham Depo Moto Storage))
We were both furloughed a few days before April 1st and when I had reached out and told our connections on the other side of the world that I've worked with for 20 years, they thought it was an April Fool's joke. “How? You were with your company over 20 years.” We both understood very quickly: No one was buying the milk. You didn't need the cow. And we were the cow. We were the design and manufacturing process.
((Stefon Davis
Co-Owner, Gotham Depo Moto Storage))
In that time, there was fear. There was concern, concern of the next paycheck and where that's coming from.
((Ronnie Pichson
Co-Owner, Gotham Depo Moto Storage))
I’d be so scared. I had no idea what we were going to do. All the skills that I valued myself so much on mattered nothing anymore.
((NATS))
((Stefon Davis
Co-Owner, Gotham Depo Moto Storage))
I tend to get a little antsy. Creative mind, creative hands. Now I have to figure out what am I doing? What? I need to do something. I need to do something. I'm driving around the neighborhood, come across the warehouse and blew my mind. We both are avid riders and how can we combine our love for motorcycles and kind of make it a career, a new career path. Since COVID, no one's riding the subways at all. Where is everyone putting all these vehicles and how they're storing them?
((Ronnie Pichson
Co-Owner, Gotham Depo Moto Storage))
And he starts to pitch this idea to me. I couldn't say no. It was so well thought out. Hey, sort of like, you know, a boutique-y hotel for motorcycles. We both had very good salaries. We were very lucky in the fact that we had always put away for our 401Ks [retirement accounts]. Strangely enough, during COVID, the markets were doing well. I never thought that what we would put away for our retirement would save us. And we would call and we would call the landlords and say, “Hey, we're looking to rent your space.” And they said, “What are you looking to do?” And we said, “Motorcycle parking.” And some of them would hang up.
((Stefon Davis
Co-Owner, Gotham Depo Moto Storage))
All they saw was motorcycle noise, oil, dirt. So we had to shop this around kind of differently. So we needed to do presentation boards in order for people to actually get it.
((Ronnie Pichson
Co-Owner, Gotham Depo Moto Storage))
And the warehouse was an old, fishmonger's warehouse. It was all white. It was, there was nothing here. Smelled like fish. We saw the raw space and we knew we had this beautiful canvas. We could do whatever we want. We had one rule when we were building the garage. You can't repeat material if you have one leather couch, the next couch can't be leather. If you have aluminum lockers, you can't have, you know, aluminum door.
((Stefon Davis
Co-Owner, Gotham Depo Moto Storage))
We have people that come from the front just to walk to the back just to do this. It's an illusion. And this is good wallpaper.
((Ronnie Pichson
Co-Owner, Gotham Depo Moto Storage))
We also have an office area for them. So they have, people come in here and they spend their time and they do their WeWork and they have Wi-Fi. But they also have the ability to scan, to fax, to print, to make copies.
((Stefon Davis
Co-Owner, Gotham Depo Moto Storage))
This way, once you dismount off of your bike, you're not leaning over to your neighbor. You're not knocking into your neighbor's bike at all. As well as a trickle charger, we provide you with a hanger as well as your own private locker.
((Ronnie Pichson
Co-Owner, Gotham Depo Moto Storage))
That you have 14 cameras also with facial recognition.
((Stefon Davis
Co-Owner, Gotham Depo Moto Storage))
For us, security is paramount. It's something that, you know, we want to ensure that our members are going to rest easy at night.
((Ronnie Pichson
Co-Owner, Gotham Depo Moto Storage))
We needed to attract business. This is our growing years. So we lowered the price to $250. We, coming from fashion and liking a little bit of drama and knowing the difference of art and light and balance, so that the light bounces off the ceiling and then comes down and then we have the middle row turned down, so at night, this is like a fashion runway.
((Stefon Davis
Co-Owner, Gotham Depo Moto Storage))
Right, right, right. We also built the mezzanine behind you.
((Ronnie Pichson
Co-Owner, Gotham Depo Moto Storage))
When we built this, I said to the builder, I said, “I want nothing in that corner. I want this corner to be my Titanic.” This is what I live for, really. This is what I live for. My best friend, my husband, my partner, to take this next step in life. I've been fired four times.
((Stefon Davis
Co-Owner, Gotham Depo Moto Storage))
He’s been fired four times and, you know, he had some times and, you know, we laugh and, you know, we say that it’s two o’clock and I would have been in a fitting or I would have been doing an approval of fabrics or… and just to realize that this is our job now and it is truly a love and it's just, yeah, it's real humbling. I have to tell you that to sit here and to look at what we've accomplished and…
((Ronnie Pichson
Co-Owner, Gotham Depo Moto Storage))
…what we built.
((Stefon Davis
Co-Owner, Gotham Depo Moto Storage))
Yeah.
((Ronnie Pichson
Co-Owner, Gotham Depo Moto Storage))
The biggest lesson that I think I learned from COVID was something that Steph called me out on 10 years ago and I dismissed it and I said, “That's impossible and I don't see it.” And it was complacency. I had gotten complacent. I was very proud of my job and my title but if that's where I sat till the day I retired, then that was fine.
((Stefon Davis
Co-Owner, Gotham Depo Moto Storage))
Yeah.
((Ronnie Pichson
Co-Owner, Gotham Depo Moto Storage))
Every day we want this to grow. Every day we will do something more. And again, now we're learning to dream.
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