By Leslie Albrecht
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
MORNINGSIDE HEIGHTS — Dreading the next winter storm? One New Yorker is celebrating every inch of snow that blankets Manhattan.
For Bob Fendell, owner of University Housewares and University Hardware on Broadway and West 113th Street, each whiteout brings more green in the cash register.
"It's been good for us," Fendell said, referring to this winter's record-breaking onslaught. "Hot summers and cold winters are good for us. Extremes are good."
Fendell's stores — packed floor-to-ceiling with every imaginable household product from mini whisks to surge protectors to silver polish — already do brisk business as go-to retailers for Columbia University dorm dwellers.
But pile on a few extra feet of snow, and Fendell has seen a long list of products fly off the shelves: shovels, salt, sleds, window sealing kits, air conditioner covers, space heaters and humidifiers, to name a few.
The other section of the store that's seen a blizzard of business this winter: the baking supplies aisle. Fendell said he's been ordering new cupcake trays daily.
Fendell's theory is that people are hunkering down at home to bake.
"When it rains, they don't come out," Fendell said. "But when it snows, they'll bundle up, they'll come out, they'll buy the Pyrex and they'll bake a cake."
