By Olivia Scheck
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
INWOOD — Their introduction was inevitable. Stacey King runs Wiggles and Giggles playhouse in Washington Heights, while Tammy McKillip is the "publisher mom" behind Macaroni Kid, a children's events blog covering the Upper West Side through Inwood.
But it didn't actually happen until Wednesday morning, when roughly 100 small business owners gathered in an undeveloped office space at the Inwood Center on 214th Street.
"I've been sending messages; she's been sending emails that got bounced back," McKillips said after the event. "This is the first time that we actually met in person and we were stationed right across from one another."
She and King were among the more than 50 owners who purchased tables at the Small Business Fair, a networking forum for small business owners in Upper Manhattan organized by the Manhattan Times, Workspace and the Washington Heights-Inwood Chamber of Commerce.
The others included upstarts, such as Tony Creative, a multimedia design company that hopes to create a hyper-local yellow pages for Upper Manhattan, and longtime local businesses hoping to expand their clientele.
Vicente Villalba, founding president of Dynamics Multilingual Services and Washington Heights native, began building his company seven years ago to serve the translating needs of Upper Manhattan's multilingual communities.
"When my mother applied for Medicaid or food stamps… there was only one Spanish interpreter…so I would run around interpreting for people," Villalba said, explaining his inspiration for starting the business.
Now, with his company nearly a decade old, Villalba turned out for the Wednesday's small business fair in part to promote the company's audio equipment services, which includes PA system and karaoke rentals.
Other businesses, like Eventture Girls Inc., an event planning and cake design company, are just getting started in the neighborhood. But on Wednesday they benefited from the wisdom of the area's elder business people.
"We're all here to support each other," said Beverly Susan Carter, a manager of the Inwood H&R Block who has organized networking events for small business owners in the past. "This is really exciting."
