From the News Room

Consistency keeps Ray Mazzini’s scissors snipping for 20 years

By Daniel P. Bader

Ray Mazzini, owner of Ray's Barbershop on W. 207th Street, used to tease his older brother, Frank, about how many of his adult customers had their first hair cuts as kids in his chair. "Now I'm slowly reaching that point myself," Ray said. "I do first haircuts and last hair cuts." Ray has been cutting men's hair for over 20 years. He started working alongside Frank and his father, Andrew, in their old location on W. 204th Street in 1985. In fact, there has been a Mazzini clipping hair in either Washington Heights or Inwood since 1940. "My dad was a barber in Washington Heights. 185th Street and St. Nicholas is where I grew up and where his shop was," Ray said. "My grandparents came over from Italy at the turn of the century. … The Heights and Inwood have been in my family forever." Andrew moved the shop to W. 204th Street in 1955 and continued clipping hair even after he retired in 1980. The shop passed to Ray's brother, Frank, and for 12 years the three Mazzini men worked the shop together. In 1997 Andrew passed away and Frank opened a shop near his home in New Jersey, passing the family business to Ray. The three chairs in his shop are over 100 years old. Old photos, one of his dad next to his chair before he owned his own shop, hang on a back wall near waiting benches and magazines.

As Ray finished up with a customer, the mailman came in. "No I haven't heard yet," the postman said, handing him the mail and heading back into a snowstorm. Later Ray explained that his regular postman had retired, and he was waiting for news of a retirement party. "It's a meeting place for a lot of Inwoodites," he said of his shop. "People come in here to drop off news and pick up news. Sort of like a bartender but without the booze." He reminisced on how the neighborhood has changed, and how it has stayed the same. "I'd say 99 percent of people are repeat customers," he said. "There are some who were Yeshiva students that still come in as senior citizens." Ray thinks his customers love routine, especially not having to explain how they want their hair cut when they come in.
Ray was forced by rising rents to move from W. 204th Street to his current location on W. 207th Street in 2000, but all his customers followed him. He saw them personally, because he had three months notice to move and saw them all in his chair to deliver the news personally. "Right from the first day it was business as usual," he said. That customer base, developed by his father, then his brother, is what keeps his shop open.
"Ritchie," he said, pointing to a man getting his hair cut. "He's here 40 years, ya know? My best customers are still my customers. Consistency is the key for success." But many of those customers have changed. Senior citizen used to be 90 percent of his business. Now they account for only five percent of his sales. "Those are all your Inwoodites that are gone now," he said. "I miss all those World War II stories." "Change is good, but some of that is irreplaceable." He jokes that every 100 years the haircut is free. "Only one customer has taken me up on it," Ray said. Mr. Cohen, he recalls came in after his 100th birthday for his free haircut. "He passed away just recently," he added.
The neighborhood has changed, he said, at least three times since he joined his brother's shop. The Irish and German Jews have left, and Dominicans moved in. Now he sees it changing again, with transplants from downtown moving in who do not fit in an ethnic category. Now, he said, the neighborhood is more of a melting pot.

Over the years, customers have suggested that he expand to cut women's hair, or hire a stylist to bring women to the shop. While he still only cuts men's hair, he has adapted to stay in business. He's open on Mondays now - the day long acknowledged as a barber's day off. He is also open for about 11 hours a day, and gets $13 for a cut, $12 for seniors and $10 for a shave. But as far as changing the style of his haircuts, some things are better left as they are. "It's one of the last pure barbershops," Ray said. "I feel my father started something that I don't want to change"