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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Now, to your calls in our latest Shop Listener call-in. If you're selling gifts from the New York City suburbs that other New York Public Radio listeners, other Brian Lehrer Show listeners might be interested in buying. Julia in Westchester, you're on WNYC. Hi, Julia.

Julia Wright Rogers: Hi, how are you?

Brian: Good. What have you got?

Julia: I am a professional organizer and a life management professional. I own a business called Never Enough Time. I help people declutter, create home systems, teach people how to use their technology to make their life easier. I work with downsizers and empty nesters, all kinds of folks.

Brian: You come to people's homes if they want you to, and you advise both on how they can behave differently as well as physical organizing?

Julia: Absolutely. I can help people create patterns of good behavior where if you are somebody who loses your keys a lot or your mail piles up a lot, we can talk about how to create a system so that those patterns don't repeat. I can also just come in and completely unpack someone who's just moved in. I run the gamut. I've been doing this a long time.

Brian: It's called Never Enough Time?

Julia: Yes. The website is neverenoughtime.co.

Brian: Thank you, Julia. Happy holidays. Another one from Westchester. Lukas, you're on WNYC. Hi, Lukas.

Lukas Herbert: Hi, Brian. Thanks so much for taking my call.

Brian: What have you got?

Lukas: I run a small bicycle tourism company out of Westchester. We help take people who might live in the city who maybe aren't aware of some really great places that you can go for a bike ride. We try to get them out either for a day or for multiple days. We also partner with Metro-North Railroad to package some of these tours with discounted rail fare.

Brian: Now, I think I read that you don't need to apply for a bicycle pass to take your bike on Metro-North anymore. Is that right?

Lukas: That's correct. They dropped that requirement during this past year.

Brian: Which is great, because there are so many great places points north to bicycle, and if you don't have to go through the bureaucracy first that's super great. Let me ask you about one in particular. I have ridden through Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx to the Westchester County line, and I've personally gone as north as about the Cross County Parkway. How much further does that path go now?

Lukas: That goes almost 100 miles to Kingston, pretty much as an off-road non-motorized facility. It's part of what they now call the Empire State Trail, which is a 750-mile-long trail system that the state recently opened. They opened it this past January. Now, this trail system is a combination of both bike paths and on-road segments, but the off-road section where it's just a bike path it's pretty much continuous from Van Cortlandt Park to the City of Kingston.

Brian: That is awesome. All right, so Gotham Bicycle Tours.

Lukas: Yes. We run tours the whole length.

Brian: That's awesome. How do people get in touch?

Lukas: Go to gothambiketours.com and all the information is on our webpage.

Brian: Thank you very much. Great gift for the right bicycle enthusiast. Tanu in Montclair, you're on WNYC. Hello, Tanu.

Tanu: Hi, Brian. How are you? I love your show. I wanted to just say really quickly to support a wonderful store that is located in north New Jersey on William Street. It is called The Black Home, and it's an absolutely beautiful place. You can get art, flatware, dishes, all types of things you can go. If you go online to theblackhome.com, you can find out the information. If you want to get out and just enjoy life, go into the store. It's like a beautiful space, it's really great.

I wanted to also big up really quickly icaparts.org. It's an arts organization out of Montclair, New Jersey. We have some collages online right now that people can buy, and it will support our program for girls who cannot normally afford to come to our program. We got some RBG collages, Frida collages, all kind of stuff. You would go to icaparts.org, that's I-C-A-P-A-R-T-S as in Sam .org. Check it out, buy those collages to support the girls. Thank you, Brian.

Brian: How about The Black Home? You have a storefront. Do you want to give the address?

Tanu: Oh, I don't own the store, but I just came out of there. It's owned by Neffi Walker and it is an amazing store. I just came out-- I'm going to tell you what I got.

Brian: Tell me what you got.

Tanu: I got a beautiful piece of arts of items, a tic-tac-toe that is pitch images of the content of Africa, and then an X, and you could do tic-tac-toe. They got all kinds of stuff in there, Brian. If you want to go in there, you can, but if you want to go online, The Black Arts-- no, it's called-- the-- sorry. I'm so excited.

Brian: The Black Home.

Tanu: theblackhome.com

Brian: Awesome, Tanu. Thank you so much. Call us again. Fran in Riverhead. You're on WNYC. Hi, Fran.

Francesca Sabbatino: Hi Brian. Longtime listener, first-time caller. Great to talk to you.

Brian: Glad you're on. What have you got?

Fran: My husband and I run a online business called A like Apple, S like Sam, A like Apple numeral three Scale Product.

Brian: Oh boy.

Fran: We 3D print scale accessories for the model train RC, that's radio-controlled car and truck, and dollhouse enthusiasts. They're 1/10 and 1/12 scale models. We also do some design work if someone has a particular accessory that they want printed, we can design it and print it up for them. We are on Etsy at asa3scaleproducts.

Brian: Give that web address again, say those letters and numbers combination.

Fran: Okay. We are on the Etsy platform and it's A like apple, S like Sam, A like apple, the number three Scale Products.

Brian: Thank you so much. Good luck with it. From out in Riverhead, we go up to Elinor in Stamford. You're on WNYC. Hi, Elinor.

Elinor: Hi Brian. Thanks for taking my call.

Brian: You're very welcome. What have you got?

Elinor: I am a small local florist here in Stamford serving Fairfield County and the surrounding area. During the spring, summer, and fall use a 100% locally grown flowers, foliage, and products. Everything is like sustainably grown, and we don't use any plastic, et cetera. For the holidays we're offering a six-month flower subscription, which is just a really fun gift you can get for a loved one or yourself-- if you love flowers. That once-a-month flowers just-- you can either pick up or deliver straight to your one Friday a month for six months.

Brian: Nice. A Friday flowers gift for half a year.

Elinor: Exactly, yes.

Brian: Say again, how do they get in touch?

Elinor: Oh, I'm sorry. I just have Instagram, it's @call.me.marigold. There's lots of information up about it. The link to sign up is in the bio. You can also always message me to order. Yes, that's the store.

Brian: That's great. Thank you very much. Nice gift that will last half a year. Pete in Cranford. You're on WNYC. Hi, Pete.

Pete: Brian, first of all, I want to say it's an honor to speak with you. Long story short, I've been a long-time listener, first-time caller. It's not about me, it's not about you, it's about my hard-working wife who during COVID, the early stages of COVID started a online pottery business. It's almost the tip of the hat for how a hard worker she is. In fact, she's in the basement right now working on some more pottery and she's had just a very astounding success story. She made it to the cover of Real Simple magazine last month, November a Thanksgiving issue. Before I forget, let me just shout out her website, and then I will hang up and listen on the air. Her website is indigoroadstudio.com and that's all together, Indigo like the color, Road, R-O-A-D, Studio self-explanatory .com.

Brian: What's an example of a holiday gift somebody might buy from her?

Pete: You can never go wrong with a planner, right? House planted, people love plants. Especially when you're-- a lot of indoor time you want to have the positive effects that a plant has where it removes the toxins from the air, gives more oxygen, and more lately and more relevantly, for better for worse people are getting together for the holidays and having big meals, a lot of people over. She's been doing this some rather modern and really funky pottery that people are getting into and so she's been making a lot of dinnerware sets, topless plates, bowls, and the rest of it.

Brian: Nice points with the wife for Pete in Cranford as she works away in the basement on all of this. Is she listening? Can she hear you?

Pete: I hope so. I yelled down the stairs. I was really excited to talk to Brian, first of all, you of course. Then secondly, I've converted her. She used to be a pop radio listener and I converted her to a WNYC listener.

Brian: That's great. Say the name again, how can people get in touch?

Pete: Sure. In addition to her Facebook page and her Instagram page, her website is www.indigoroadstudio.com.

Brian: Thank you, Pete. Good luck to you and to her. One more as we go down the shore to Point Pleasant Beach for Daniel. Daniel, you're on WNYC, we've got about 30 seconds for you.

Daniel: Hey, I just want to say all the parents who are getting their kid's skateboarding products whether it's a complete skateboard or a deck, truck wheels, shoes, shirts, whatever, take them to a skate shop. Please don't buy online. New York, you got Labor in lower Manhattan, KCDC in Brooklyn, there's a dozen other shops up there. Here in New Jersey of course we have NJ Skateshop, the legendary shop, Jersey City and New Brunswick. In my little town, we don't have a skate shop, we have a surf shop, but they sell skateboards that is Gordon's.

Brian: That's got to be the last word. I'm sorry to say but that's a nice shout-out for the whole industry of local skate shops rather than buying online. Daniel and everybody, thanks very much for your calls. Remember, you can still post to the map that we're building for our 2021 Shop Listeners Gift Guide online. You can post at wnyc.org/shoplistenersignup or you can text shop2021 to 70101 if you want to post something. Listeners shop our shop listener sellers @wnyc.org/shoplistener2021.

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