Posted by Brooklyn Bill
My friend Mark Heskin's doll-making business took off in a pretty gay way. He made dolls of the Wizard of Oz characters and put them in the window of a laundromat along with a sign that provided his phone number and his services as a creator of custom-made soft-sculpture dolls.
His next marketing move was placing eyeglasses-wearing dolls in the store windows of various opticians on streets with high pedestrian traffic. The stores gained a cute way to show off their frames, and Mark got more and more customers.
My friend Mark Heskin's doll-making business took off in a pretty gay way. He made dolls of the Wizard of Oz characters and put them in the window of a laundromat along with a sign that provided his phone number and his services as a creator of custom-made soft-sculpture dolls.
His next marketing move was placing eyeglasses-wearing dolls in the store windows of various opticians on streets with high pedestrian traffic. The stores gained a cute way to show off their frames, and Mark got more and more customers.
That was back in the mid '80s. Mark had moved to the city from North Dakota after graduating high school in 1978 and getting a job as a nanny. He also worked on the side as an extra in TV shows and movies being shot in the city. When, at the age of 26, he felt confident he could make a living from the dolls, he quit his live-in childcare gig and bought his apartment on West 72nd Street, a very short walk from Central Park.
