Barbershop Boom Comes to Easton

Ricardo Urena started cutting hair at 14 for his five brothers and friends. 

It began as a necessity, but 15 years later, he's turned it into a business. But the field was too crowded in Allentown, so Urena came to Easton, where he opened his Legacy Hall Barbershop on the 1300 block of Northampton Street in February.

Urena is part of a small wave of barbershops that have all opened along Northampton Street in the last year. In addition to Legacy Hall, there's Flow Factory in the 600 block, and R&R Barbershop, which opened under new management on the 100 block.

Their arrival has gotten a mixed reaction from the city's existing community of barbers.

“To become a barber, it takes about ten years; you can’t open up a shop in 24 hours,” said Leo Mieli, who's run on Fourth Street for 50 years. 

Taking a nine-month course at a barbering school, he said, doesn’t make a barber. 

And Juan Mariano -- whose is on the same block as Legacy Hall -- is concerned about the increase of shops nearby, saying he doesn’t understand why city officials allow another barber shop so close to his.

Others were more accommodating, like barber James Birdsong, who says there's enough business in the city for everyone.

“I don’t really mind the competition; the best man wins,” said Birdsong, owner of The Barbershop Plus on the 500 block of Northampton. 

 Birdsong, who took over the business from a relative about eight years ago, has been cutting hair since he was nine. 

 “The barber shop was my way of socializing,” he said. “It’s a job you can work at for 20 hours a day.” 

Although Birdsong says he's not concerned about the arrival of new barbers, he’s concerned that state officials in Harrisburg aren’t regulating the industry enough to keep it at professional levels.

And Mieli, 80, said he's facing his own external constraints. He’d like to take youngsters under his wing and teach them the art of barbering, but says the barbershop union only allows him to apprentice his son.