They’ll Leave Some Big Shoes to Fill : ‘. . . People came down here because of the service we gave them and the kind of product we have. It’s almost like a family.’

For 48 years, Edward Poritzky has served coffee and cookies, told stories, advised tourists on hotels and museums and provided a friendly haven for deliverymen and cops on the beat in a section of downtown not far from Skid Row.

And, oh yes, Poritzky has done something else. He has sold shoes--thousands and thousands of shoes--in wondrous widths and lengths. He has ferreted out the perfect fit for giant-footed football players and pixie-footed entertainers. He has custom-ordered up to size 25 EEEEE for a 7-foot, 11-inch circus performer. He has arranged for shoes to be inscribed in gold and procured a patent-leather and suede pair to match a finicky customer’s blue Thunderbird.

But sometime this summer, Poritzky and his son, Mark, will hang up their shoehorns for the last time, close down Wright’s Shoe Store on Seventh Street--and conclude a unique episode in the history of downtown retailing.

“The environment down here isn’t that good, but people came down here because of the service we gave them and the kind of product we have. It’s almost like a family,” said the white-haired Poritzky, looking fit and wiry at 72. Pointing to a customer, he added: “That lady bought five pairs of shoes. You know why she bought five pairs of shoes? Because she couldn’t get them anywhere else.”

Indeed, there really is nowhere else quite like this unassuming shop nestled between Los Angeles and Main streets, on a block where some of those wandering by don’t even have shoes. Even as the neighborhood declined, the store maintained a level of service to customers that would impress the most old-fashioned of merchants.

But as the Poritzkys tell it, changes in the shoe trade--not the neighborhood--finally convinced them to call it quits. Competition from mail-order catalogues has been on the rise. Some of their most trusted American suppliers have gone out of business, and the rare sizes they take pride in offering have become harder to get from some companies, they say.

The owners say that it’s not worth staying in business unless they can provide the extraordinary service that has been their hallmark: “We’ve always tried to maintain a certain level of quality in terms of fit and durability,” said Mark, 39. “Our major suppliers have gotten away from that over the years.”

(Although Wright’s carries Wright Arch Preservers, among other shoe brands, the similarity in names is coincidental. Edward said he called his store Wright’s simply because he and a former partner liked the sound of it better than their own names: “Who would know Greenburg and Poritzky?”)

One thing is for sure: Feet were serious business here. The shop recently arranged to have specially built size 12 A shoes air-freighted to Madison, Wis., for an anthropologist who was about to leave for a lengthy dig in Egypt. Mark noted that the stakes were high because the man would be trekking around a region where the choice of footwear is decidedly limited: “He couldn’t afford a mistake.”

In a day when shopping can be a cold, unpleasant experience, the Poritzkys were defiantly out of step. They actually made home-deliveries for valued customers--on one occasion, taking a new pair of bedroom slippers to a man’s hospital room. They would stretch the leather of uncomfortable shoes free of charge for people who walked in off the street.

Also Soled the Stars

The proprietors like to tell how actress Rhea Perlman came in to buy shoes for her husband-to-be, Danny DeVito, a few years ago. She put off Edward’s persistent efforts to offer cookies, finally saying she’d eat asparagus. So the owner went into the back and heated up a can. Afterward, “She said to me, ‘I didn’t want any asparagus--I just wanted to get you off my back.’ ”

(Wright’s also ordered DeVito’s shoes for the movie “Tin Men,” where he portrayed an aluminum-siding salesman. Mark suggested a brown oxford as appropriate for the character.) The Poritzkys have a certain professional reluctance to talk about their clientele, but they will say that customers have included Ernest Borgnine, Ralph Bellamy and Chuck Connors. They also say they’ve supplied shoes used by Rock Hudson, Sam Jaffe and Lonie Anderson.

And, without too much prompting, they’ll share colorful stories about a product that people take very personally. The Poritzkys have sold to a missionary who insisted that they scuff up his new shoes--he didn’t want to appear too affluent in the jungle--and a man who bought expensive riding boots only to have them bronzed and placed over his fireplace as a sign that he’d made it financially.

Then there was the guy who liked to have his name inscribed in gold, an indulgence that would cost him dearly. As Mark recounts the story, the man came into the shop one time and said he didn’t want the special inscription any longer. His explanation: He’d been cheating on his wife--and was forced to exit so hastily during a liaison that he left the fancy shoes behind. He would have gotten away with it, too, except that the gold inscription inside provided telltale evidence of his fooling around. “The detective showed the shoes to his wife and it cost him a mink coat.”

On another occasion, Wright’s came to the rescue of a regular customer who entered the store with his small, wide feet covered only in socks. It seems that he’d taken his boots off at a Japanese restaurant, and they were stolen as he dined. “The restaurant sent him over for a new pair of boots,” said Mark. “What else could they do? He was a size 8 1/2 triple E.”

To be honest, there has been a glaring exception to the Poritzkys’ serve-everybody philosophy. While carrying shoes for men with feet of all sizes, they limited the women’s inventory to extra wide. Their rationale was that women with narrower, bonier feet are slim, more conscious of fashion--and a hassle to fit.

Explained the father: “If I was carrying narrow widths, I’d have headaches all the time. But these people with wide feet--they just flow into their shoes.”

Those who do rely on Wright’s for enthusiastic service and a perfect fit have rewarded the store with intense loyalty. Customers have placed orders from various states and foreign countries, including Australia, Thailand and Singapore. Not surprisingly, many aren’t happy that it’s closing.

“I’ve been out of Los Angeles for 25 years, and I still come to Wright’s to get my shoes,” said Norman Bronson, 64, a factory manager based in Puerto Rico who used to have trouble finding shoes for his small, narrow 8 1/2 AA foot. “It’s a sad commentary on what’s happening.”

One thing that happened is that many American shoe suppliers have gone belly up over the years, as competitors from Italy, Brazil, South Korea, Taiwan and other countries have captured most of the U.S market. The Poritzkys have refrained from carrying the foreign products, saying they can’t be relied on to fit as well.

Retailing has changed, too. From a cold dollars-and-cents perspective, the Poritzkys’ wish to carry an extraordinary array of sizes may not be the most competitive way to operate anymore. Shopping malls are filled, after all, with profitable shoe stores--many part of chain operations--that take a less ambitious approach to covering people’s feet.

Moreover, shoe companies themselves are relying increasingly on mail-order sales to satisfy those customers who have difficulty finding a comfortable fit.

“Fit is important,” said Elliot B. Lubin, a retail management consultant and specialist on the shoe industry. “But most people know whether they’re being fit properly or not. People take responsibility for their own fit.”

Model of Service

But in one respect at least, the Poritzkys may be less a vanishing breed than they realize. The high standards of customer service they maintained, even as many retail stores cut back in the 1960s and 1970s, show some signs of coming back into vogue in the 1980s.

“The biggest emphasis in retailing today is on improved customer service,” said Bernard Codner, director of the Institute of Retail Management at California State University, Los Angeles. “That’s the emphasis with every retailer that I talk to.”

The Poritzkys haven’t set a date for closing, but expect it to happen sometime within the next several weeks when the inventory, which is being marked down, gets low enough. Already, the shelves--stacked 11 levels high around the store--are showing unaccustomed bare spots.

After the store closes, Mark, who briefly worked as a public school teacher and used to have a stockbroker’s license, plans a vacation in Mexico, where he’ll consider possible opportunities to enter the financial field.

Edward has been easing away from the day-to-day grind for several years and likes to go fishing a couple times a week out of San Pedro. But the man who arrived in Los Angeles “penniless” 51 years ago still finds it hard to let go of the business he nurtured from its infancy.

To describe his feelings, he recalled how his parents used to take him to concerts in a Philadelphia park on summer evenings when he was a child. On the last night of the season, each musician would perform a solo, blow out a candle and leave the stage. It was a bittersweet farewell that he never forgot. “That’s how I feel about my business now,” said the owner. “I’m blowing out the candles.”