Photograph by Whitney Curtis
Gus's Fashions & Shoes, at Washington Avenue and Tucker Boulevard, was not simply a place to buy hip-hop gear. It was a place where Gus Torregrossa would turn on the store PA and invite his customers to bust out rhymes, which they readily did. Gus might show you shiny gold Reeboks identical to the pair he had made for Pope John Paul II. Stopping by Gus's meant you would also probably find Gus' surrogate son, Jimmy Vitale, who would happily regale you with tales of his girlfriends and the ankle bracelets they were required to wear after leaving jail.
Gus' hip-hop haberdashery is no more, but a short documentary film that captures all the kooky flavor of the store and its people, Gus, has just been released on DVD. A premiere party with a screening and appearances by Torregrossa, Vitale and the film's director, Daniel Bowers, takes place on August 15 at Mad Art.
Now Gus is retired and, he says, doing a lot of charity work and a lot of eating. He adds that he looks back fondly on bygone days when downtown had more mom and pop businesses, when big rap stars like "that ugly Flavor Flav" would drop dimes in his store.
"When we had [famously obscene rappers] 2 Live Crew in the store, there were 20,000 people gathered on Washington Avenue to meet them," he says. "That's gotta be the biggest crowd for a celebrity since President Truman was in town."
