In 1970, the moon was very much on everyone's mind because on July 20, 1969 Neil Armstrong of the United States was the first person to touch the moon's surface, fulfilling a vow made by President Kennedy that before the 1960s were over, we would have a "man on the moon." And so we did, if even President Kennedy wasn't alive to see it happen..
The fellow I saw with what some might call the first environmental slogan was amongst a scrum of hippies that were outside a store on the north side 17th Street, between Irving Place and Third Avenue.
The family flower shop was around the corner on 18th Street and Third Avenue, so I was always going through that area. The store these hippies were in front of was a store selling "Earth Shoes," shoes that were supposed to give you the feel of walking barefoot. They were made by Kalsø.
The backstory gets filled in when you read the obituary of Eleanor Jacobs, who with her husband Raymond, brought the style of shoe over from Europe and promoted them in the United States. The shoe had a so called "negative heel" that was lower than the rest of the sole. The shoes were wildly popular with the hippie sandal set, but soon fell out of favor after about 1977, the sales weakened by knockoffs and concerns expressed by podiatrists about the harm to the foot they might be causing.
Turns out in 1969, Eleanor and her husband Raymond were touring Europe, and of course doing a lot of walking and standing. They were in Denmark when Eleanor spotted a pair of what were then called "Anne Kalso Minus Heels." They were named after their designer, a yoga instructor named Anne Kalso. The shoes featured a wide toe box and a sole that was thicker in the front than in the back. Eleanor's chronic back pain was greatly relieved as she wore the shoes for the rest of their vacation.
Eleanor worked in the garment district, and her husband was a commercial photographer. They had a entrepreneurial spirit and opened a store on the first floor of their 17th Street brownstone, becoming the sole U.S. distributor. At that point, 17th Street was in between Third Avenue and Irving Place, a quiet residential stretch that had Willie's deli, St John the Baptist Greek Church, a real estate office and Washington Irving High School, along with other brownstones and older apartment houses on the block. The area is pretty much the same today.
They didn't really have a name for the store or product until they asked the convoy of hippies that were walking past the store one day in April 1970 where they were going. "Hey man, it's Earth Day! There is a love-in down the street in the park."
"Down the street in the park" was nearby Union Square, then and now a gathering place for all sorts of assemblies.
Smacked with marketing eureka, Raymond quickly named the store "KALSØ EARTH SHOES" and the rest became marketing history. Huge success, until the air went out of the balloon.
The Jacobses' business however was soon hit with competition and eventually they declared bankruptcy in 1977. According to Eleanor in an interview the Litchfield Enquirer in 2000, the bank that had lent them money "didn't trust us, nor our flower children. nor our unconventional marketing strategy despite our steady growth and profits."
Apparently, there is still an earth shoe called Earth Kalsø Shoes from a company that was revived in 2001, Earth Inc.
Who knows, the fellow who informed the Jacobses that it was Earth Day, might have been the fellow who had the slogan spelled out in masking tape on his back.
An Earth Day doesn't go by that I fail to remember his sentiment.
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