Better weather has been bad for business
By: Ilene Dube
The “Beware of Dog” sign is the first thing I notice at Stanley’s Auto Sales on Route 1. It is certainly the larger of the two signs. I look carefully for the dog among the lot of shiny metal hubcaps before getting out of my car, trembling.
I go to the shed and push in the door, but it is locked. I see a small sign that instructs me to ring the bell at the house next door. House?
Across the highway, buzzing with traffic, is the Baker’s Basin Motor Vehicle Inspection Station and a new automotive dealership under construction. I notice a small white building to my right, looking like no one has been there in years.
I walk over and ring the doorbell. Some time passes before I hear movement inside and a rugged-looking man in his 50s asks how he can help me.
He is Kaz Daniecki, and his father started the hubcap business 50 years ago in this location. His father died in 1988, and Mr. Daniecki has had the place up for sale for the past 10 years — he is asking $975,000 for the land, an acre and a third.
“It’s the last one left — it’s Mom’s property.” His mother, Irene, lives in the white house, where he cares for her. She had a stroke three years ago.
Mr. Daniecki is not particular about what kind of business replaces his — he’ll take anyone who is willing to give him the money. “If a guy gives me a lot of money, why should I be sad?” he says. He has two prospects right now — a fast food restaurant and a retail business.
“We were supposed to be out in August, but they backed out of the deal,” he says.
The hubcap business has not been kind to Mr. Daniecki in recent years. “It’s been harder because the winters are milder. No snow means no pot holes. No pot holes, no business.” Also, he complains of the newer hubcaps, made of plastic, that are harder to come off.
When Mr. Daniecki thought he was done with the place, he bought another property on Bakers Basin Road. It is a farm he plans to run as a hobby. He used to farm Beefalo cattle behind the hubcap shed in ’96.
Mr. Daniecki grew up surrounded by farms. He was born in this house. Across Route 1, then a sleepy roadway with a grass median down the middle, the Vaccaro brothers farmed the land where the auto dealership is being built. Where the Quaker Bridge Mall is now, there had been a hog farm. There was a small airport where the inspection station is.
He would eat at the Clarksville Diner, and the grandchildren of the owner, Butchie and Jamie Swift, were his good friends — and still are today. “I hunt with Butchie,” he said.
He went to Slackwood School, Lawrence Junior High and Trenton High School. Another one of his friends was the owner of the Amoco station where New York Deli now stands. “He works as a boiler man at the Lawrenceville prep school,” he said.
The noise on Route 1 is deafening, and I can barely hear Mr. Daniecki, but his hearing is sharp. “How do you put up with the noise?” I ask.
“It grows on you one car at a time. It doesn’t bother us. When we were kids we had to wait 15 to 20 minutes for a car to come by.”
As I head back to my car, I ask about the dog. He tells me she’s a 5-year-old German shepherd.
“Tell them I’m still in business,” he shouts after me.
“Tell who?”
“Tell the people who’re going to read your article.”