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View ProfilesPublished February 21, 2024 at 10:00 a.m.
If Mister Rogers' neighborhood had included a hardware store, David Corey could have been its clerk. In his customary outfit of pressed navy shirt, neat slacks and brown lace-up Oxfords, the Burlington native greets everyone who enters City Hardware at 156 College Street with a cheery, "Looking for something special?"
Then Corey focuses on them with his big brown eyes and really listens to what they need. Sometimes he asks a few clarifying questions before he beelines to the correct aisle in the 4,000-square-foot store. "Come with me," he invites warmly, navigating past a colorful display of organic vegetable seed packets or a table of caulk tubes on sale for $1.
"He always treats people with the same level of gravitas, kindness and attentiveness," said Lola Wesson, a University of Vermont student who worked with Corey at City Hardware for a year and a half.
If there were a David Corey fan club, Wesson might be its president, though she'd have some contenders.
A recent thread on the online forum Reddit paid homage to the City Hardware sales associate. It started with an all-caps declaration: "HE IS AN ANGEL THAT WE SHOULD CHERISH AND PROTECT AT ALL COSTS."
The post was upvoted 139 times, and more than a dozen fans detailed Corey's generous hand with treats for their dogs and his consistently calm, kind and helpful demeanor.
"David is one of those people who makes you step back and remember that there are still genuinely good people around," wrote a Redditor with the username Lasanchey.
"I don't even need to go [to] the hardware store at the moment, but I might go to City Hardware just to bask in Dave's presence," Secure_Maintenance21 wrote.
Brennan Gauthier, a City Hardware regular who lives a couple of blocks from the store, was among those who weighed in. In his post, Gauthier recalled playing "basketball" with Corey, tossing his crumpled store receipt between them and into the front-counter trash can. "He alley ooped it once," Gauthier wrote.
Gauthier elaborated over the phone about how much he appreciates not only Corey but the "heartfelt, positive" thread in a virtual community in which discourse tends toward the negative.
City Hardware also represents a bright spot in a downtown that currently faces many challenges, including concerns over public safety, drug use and crime. The welcoming atmosphere of the store embodied by the clerk "is like a little reprieve from everything going on," Gauthier said.
When Corey heard about the Reddit thread, he was tickled — though he didn't know what Reddit was. He has a cellphone but doesn't carry it. "I never tell my age," Corey said. "I wish I were younger," he added wistfully, before divulging that he's "a little younger" than the leading presidential candidates.
Corey grew up in Burlington "smack in the middle" of five kids. He has lived in the same North Avenue house since he was 2 years old and attended South Burlington's Rice Memorial High School "back when the nuns were there," he said.
Many locals know Corey's white, slate-roofed home for its summertime profusion of colorful flowers growing around a neat picket fence. He takes great pride in his gardens and lamented that many of his downtown customers live in apartments. "You can change the whole look of your house with a garden," he noted.
Every spring, Corey buys dozens of SunPatiens, petunias and zinnias and plants them just before Memorial Day. "It used to be a one-day job," he said. "Now I'm older, it's a three-day job."
The former IBM accounting department employee was hired on the spot when he applied for his part-time position at City Hardware about six months after it opened in January 2019.
"I wanted to do something, and I thought [the store] was small and cozy," Corey said, adding that the short commute and extra income were added motivation. "I enjoy helping people out. I get away from my house. I get some exercise."
Corey also believes fervently in the store's value. "Downtown needs this hardware store," he said. The nearest hardware store is Curtis Lumber on Pine Street; before City Hardware opened, downtown had not had a hardware store since Hagar Hardware on Church Street closed in the 1990s.
"It was a tool desert," said Nessy Arbour, who has lived downtown since before the store opened. "I was so excited when City Hardware came in ... David is like a beautiful shining star there."
Burlington's shopping scene has changed dramatically since the late 1960s, when Corey first worked in retail on Church Street at Magrams department store, JCPenney, and McAuliffe's Books and Stationery — all long gone now. He was so good at it, he said, that employers poached him from each other.
Corey thrives on helping people find what they need and making sure they're not spending money on unnecessary things.
"You're there at a hardware store with a problem you need to solve, and he's intent on helping you solve it with compassion and warmth," said Ryan Bergmann, who bought a fixer-upper in Burlington with his wife right before the pandemic. "It's not phony. It's authentic."
Being a Leo, Corey said he was born for the job. Leos "are outgoing. They like people, and people are attracted to them," he said.
"I should have stayed in retail my whole life," he reflected.
Walt Tummons, who manages City Hardware and two other Ace Hardware locations in northern Vermont, said Corey is a model employee, "always decked out, his shirttails tucked in, every hair in place, neat as a pin." His reliability was especially valuable during the pandemic, Tummons said: "He would show up and do anything you asked."
If a customer comes in to buy a can of paint, Tummons detailed, Corey "will ask if they need a paintbrush, not because he's trying to sell them something else but to save them another trip to the store."
The manager chuckled as he described a few of his employee's quirks: "He always calls me Walter, never Walt, and he always refers to himself in the third person. He says, 'Walter, you've made David Corey the most popular man on Church Street again.'"
It's hard to tell if Corey is more popular with his human or canine customers. During a recent quiet weekday afternoon shift, Dillon, a small mixed-breed rescue, wagged his tail so hard upon seeing Corey that it looked like the dog might levitate.
"Does he want a treat?" Corey inquired of Willow Stein, Dillon's owner, who lives in Shelburne but works above the store and had popped downstairs to buy a multicolored disco ball light. "Isn't that adorable?" Corey cooed as Dillon joyfully crunched down on a dog biscuit. "The dogs love coming in here," Corey said. "They want to stay with David."
A few afternoons later, Corey was busy helping a series of customers. He spent several minutes searching through the drawers of screws for just the right one needed by a local handyman. Then he did the math to demonstrate that the man would be better off buying a box than 20 individual screws.
When another customer inquired about an outdoor extension cord, Corey walked him to the aisle and asked what he was planning to power with it in order to recommend the best option.
A young woman came in for a vacuum and hangers. Corey showed her a Hoover brand model and added, "There's also this Bissell, which is enough for most apartments. It's only $38 and converts to a handheld, too."
She settled on the smaller vacuum. After Corey pulled over a stepladder to reach the hangers from a high hook, he carried everything to the front counter. As he pecked the order into the register, he double-checked, "That's $38. Is that OK?"
After more than 10 minutes of searching the aisles for items on another customer's list, Corey looked almost sad that City Hardware lacked them. He offered several recommendations for other stores to check.
Jonah Goldberg approached the register with materials he'd gathered to finish a bathroom tiling project. Goldberg said he lives close by and appreciates Corey's know-how and the time he invests in each interaction. "He's always been able to help me figure out the better product," Goldberg said, recalling the clerk's valuable advice on which ant traps would most effectively resolve an infestation.
The following week, Holly Batchelder of Burlington dropped by seeking trisodium phosphate to clean kerosene heater soot from the walls of a condo. Corey acknowledged that he was unfamiliar with the product and asked a colleague to look it up on the inventory system — something he had previously admitted he has not mastered. In the meantime, he started brainstorming other options for Batchelder, including Spic and Span and Mr. Clean Magic Erasers. "Lestoil will do it, but it's too smelly," he said, wrinkling his nose.
"He's the most helpful man in the world," Batchelder gushed. "He's Mr. Helpful."
When the other clerk emerged from the rear of the store with a tub of trisodium phosphate, Corey asked Batchelder how she would use it. The next time someone comes in with that need, he'll be ready to help.
The original print version of this article was headlined "'Mr. Helpful' | Catching up with David Corey, the "angel" of Burlington's City Hardware"
Tags: Business, Burlington, David Corey, hardware store, City Hardware
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