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SoHo Neighbors Mourn the Death of 'Something Special' Store Owner

By Gwynne Hogan | March 4, 2015 7:40am
 Lenny Cecere, long-time owner of Something Special in Soho, died Feb. 25 at the age of 91. 
Lenny Cecere's Something Special
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SOHO — Lenny Cecere, the acerbic, sharp-witted owner of Something Special, who handled mail for downtown celebrities like "X-Men" heroine Famke Janssen, "Sex and the City" diva Sarah Jessica Parker and "Ferris Bueller" star Matthew Broderick, died last week. He was 91.

For about 30 years, Cecere's storefront at MacDougal and Houston streets has at various times been an anonymous drop box for celebrity mail, a notary public, a sweet shop, jewelry store and a key maker. He also sold knick knacks and yellowing books.

Cecere had lived with his wife and two children in the apartment above the shop since 1962, The Villager reported in 2007.

His death has left neighbors and patrons coping with what they call the end of an era.

"People would come in and say 'What is this store?'”  said Emmett Burke, 32, who got to know Cecere after opening a pizza shop, Emmett's, across the street two years ago. Burke said he would visit almost daily and buy a soda and chit chat. 

"He was like my therapy," Burke said. "[Something Special] was a throwback to what made this neighborhood really special...He was really the last of the old guard."

Many patron's said the shop owner's death left a cultural void in the area.

“[Cecere] made you feel like you were part of the neighborhood,” Simon Nuchtern, 78, a film producer who moved in down the street from Cecere in 1974, back when it was a mostly Italian and Portuguese neighborhood. “He made us feel very comfortable.”

When Cecere’s wife Lucy died four years ago, patrons of Something Special grew concerned that Cecere would lose the will to live. Lucy had helped found a senior center in the community and was memorialized by a wide array of New Yorkers from singer Patti Smith to politician Christine Quinn.

“For a while I was really worried he was going to join her, but he seemed to bounce back,” said Michael Kupperman, 48, who had rented a mailbox from Cecere since the late '90s.

Kupperman, an illustrator for the New Yorker and The New York Times, moved around a lot, he said. He appreciated the stable address at Something Special and over the years, and he grew cherish the older man’s salty sense of humor.

“He didn’t suffer fools gladly.” Kupperman said. “[Lenny was] sharp and foul mouthed to the end.”

The owner of the nearby French restaurant Le Pescadeux, Charles Perelmutter, often stopped in at Something Special when he needed an item notarized.

Perelmutter said Cecere was “gentlemanly, accommodating [and] full of impish life.”

Like many in the neighborhood, Perelmutter was saddened by the loss of such an important pillar of the neighborhood's history.

“Another wonderful 'institution' of my neighborhood had been lost forever,” he said.

Something Special will stay open until June 30, a store employee said.

It's unclear what will become of the shop once it closes, though the building is protected as a historic landmark. Cecere owned the building and is survived by his son Leonard and daughter Francine, neither of whom could be reached for comment.