THIS NICK is not a saint, except maybe to his most devoted customers. And he is not particularly jolly this Yuletide season, more like resigned.
That's because Nicholas C. D'Adamo Sr. is closing Shocket's General Merchandising, the ornaments-to-underwear emporium that has been a Highlandtown fixture for three-quarters of a century.
D'Adamo -- who has been associated with the store for more than 60 years as a stockboy, manager and, for the past two decades, owner -- is putting the property at 3912-14 Eastern Ave. up for sale and plans to shut the doors for good next month.
His son, City Councilman Nicholas C. D'Adamo Jr. -- the veteran 1st District Democrat and Shocket's vice president, rumored to be in line for a state job as a reward for his support of Republican Gov.-elect Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. -- said the store has been unprofitable for years and that there's "no future" in keeping it open.
"I never thought it'd go down," the elder D'Adamo, 78, said of the closing. Then, his eyes welling with tears, he added: "I gotta get out, sooner or later."
The impending closure is a reminder that the fate of city businesses, like that of cities themselves, can be a result of factors that are personal as well as cosmic. It comes even as a project moves forward for a major new library that many business people and city leaders hope will revitalize the commercial corridor.
D'Adamo Sr. says the library, tentatively scheduled to open in 2005, will be too little, too late. He figures it won't boost his business, which has been buffeted by competition from chain discounters, changing customer preferences and neighborhood demographic trends.
"The older people have died off," he said. "The younger ones don't shop here. They have cars. They go to White Marsh, they go to the malls."
Census figures bear out his assessment. As city neighborhoods go, Highlandtown, an ethnic working-class enclave in southeast, fared fairly well in the 1990s. It lost slightly more than 5 percent of its population, less than half the citywide average. But the percentage of people ages 65 and older fell 24 percent.
Cyrus Sanders typifies the regular shopper Shocket's used to have in abundance. Sanders, 84, was shopping on a recent weekday when D'Adamo told him that he was closing up shop.
"I don't know what I'm going to do. When I need something, this is the first [place I go]," Sanders said. Picking up a roll of masking tape and holding it aloft, he added: "You'd be surprised how many things they have in a place like this."
Such things as wooden mouse traps for 97 cents, plastic Santa Claus cut-outs for a buck and boxer shorts for $1.98.
They prove the adage that one person's treasure is another's trash. "To the younger generation, this is a junk store," said D'Adamo Jr., who has a district office in a cubicle in the front of the store.
It wasn't always that way. The elder D'Adamo says he remembers eager customers lining up when the delivery trucks came in and restaurateur Frances Haussner buying lighted nativity scenes by the dozens as holiday gifts for employees of her famed dining spot up the street, which served its last meal three years ago.
At one time, there were six Shocket's. By the time the owner and founder, Isadore Shocket, died in 1980, there were two. D'Adamo Sr. bought the Eastern Avenue store in 1982.
(A second Shocket's on Broadway in Fells Point, related by name only, will remain open. "We're doing pretty good down this end," said Michael White, the Broadway store's third owner in 20 years).
The joke was that the younger D'Adamo kept getting elected because people thought they were voting for his father, a likable man. But his affability wasn't enough. D'Adamo Sr. says business began to decline noticeably a decade after he bought the store. Asked why he kept going so long, he said: "We owned the building."
For D'Adamo Jr., there is a certain symmetry in the fact that the store is closing as the city takes up council redistricting. As a resident of Gardenville in northeast, Highlandtown would almost certainly not be part of his district as the council moves from six three-member districts to 14 single-member ones -- assuming he chooses to run for a fifth term.
That makes the store's closing more emotive for him, not less.
"This is tough for me," he said. "This is my life, too. It's the only job I had since I was 14."
His wish for himself: that the store's last business day be Jan. 14, his 45th birthday. His wish for his father: "I'm hoping the old customers will come back and see him one more time."