‘He Had a Passion for the Shoe Business’; Danny Wasserman, Owner of Tip Top Shoes, Dies at 80

By Andrea Sachs

For decades, Danny Wasserman, the owner of Tip Top Shoes, could be spotted striding with determination from his apartment building on West 72nd Street between Central Park West and Columbus, to his busy store on West 72nd Street, between Columbus and Amsterdam. That dedication lasted for the half-century that he owned the business. By the time he died at 80 years old last Saturday (October 5), in the aftermath of a fall, his work ethic had made him an icon on the Upper West Side, and the store he owned a destination for locals and tourists alike. As many in the neighborhood remarked, the UWS has indeed lost a “big macher” (Yiddish for an important person), in the best sense of the word.

In addition to his stature on the UWS, Danny was a legend in his industry. Footwear News described him as “a retail visionary who turned his family’s Upper West Side store into an independent footwear institution.” Footwear Plus called the Tip Top owner “the Maestro” and “an authentic Shoe Dog with a keen nose for product.” (“Shoe dog” is industry slang for a footwear business veteran.) Danny was widely known as a major influencer, helping to introduce successful brands, like Birkenstock, Ecco, Mephisto, MBT, and UGG, to New York City and beyond.

David Kahan, the CEO of Birkenstock Americas, was grateful for Danny’s support. “He took a chance on the brand when no one else carried it,” Kahan told Footwear Plus. “He literally brought it to New York City and put tens of thousands of local New Yorkers and tourists into our products, including many regular celebrity clients.” Danny even sold 72nd Street neighbor Yoko Ono a pair for John Lennon, according to the publication.

It was a labor of love, says his son Lester, who has followed him into the shoe business. “Danny had a passion for the shoe business,” he told the Rag. “He had a love for his customers, his employees, and the people in the business.” Lester says that Danny enjoyed schmoozing with other longtime retailers on West 72nd Street, sometimes offering business advice. “He was also aware that the customers in our neighborhood are accustomed to a certain level of service, and he was insistent that we outperform their expectations.”

Danny adored his family, all of whom live on the UWS. He married his wife Carol, who survives him, 52 years ago. He was thrilled when his son Lester and daughter Margot decided to follow in his footsteps (big shoes to fill!) and become co-owners. The family has turned West 72nd Street into a boulevard of footwear, with Tip Top Shoes as well as Tip Top Kids, which is headed by Margot, and West NYC, a running-shoe emporium led by Lester. The day-to-day management of Tip Top has been taken on by Lester, the store’s CEO and general manager.

To say that selling shoes is a tradition in the Wasserman family is an understatement.

Danny’s father Max was a second-generation shoe retailer in Germany. It was a joke in the household that Danny was born in a shoe store because his mother was pregnant with him while climbing ladders to stock shoes in their shoe store. His Jewish parents fled from Germany just before WWII and settled in Haifa, Israel, where Danny was born. Danny learned the shoe business from Max, who owned shoe stores in Israel. “I watched how my father bought shoes and learned what the ingredients were to a good shoe,” Danny told Footwear Plus. “He knew all of this from his past, stretching back to Germany when he worked in his father’s stores and then in Israel in his own stores.”

The family emigrated to America in the 1950s, and soon Max owned a small shoe store in the Bronx, named Asto Shoes. In 1964, the family moved to the UWS and bought Tip Top. After Max died in 1979, Danny took over the store. Tip Top became well-known for its fashionable, comfortable shoes.

That tradition shows no sign of abating. Says his daughter Margot, “My father asked, if I had a boy, would I name him Max after his father? It meant the world to him.” Max is now the name of Margot’s two-year-old son, Danny and Carol’s third grandchild. The other two are Alice and Caroline. Next year will mark the 60th anniversary of the Wasserman family’s ownership of Tip Top.

Is the fifth generation in sight?

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