At This Mom-and-Pop Store, Mom and Pop Are Divorced

Reprinted with permission from the West Side Rag.

Ruth Bienstock and her former husband Scott Bienstock are the co-owners and operators of Poetry of Material Things, a store on the Upper West Side.

Yes, you read that right.

At this mom-and-pop store, mom and pop are divorced.

The business at 220 Columbus Avenue (West 70th Street) sells handmade jewelry, artistic home goods, witty tchotchkes, and other rare finds. The origin of this merchandise is a collection of well-known and new designers and artisans around the world.

While some divorced couples can’t stand to be in the same room together, the Bienstocks have run the thriving business together for 10 years, although they were no longer married. (The duo was married in 1989 and separated in 2013, a year before they opened the boutique.)

“Our kids find it hysterical that we spend more time together than most married couples,” says Ruth. Neither of the pair has remarried.

The Bienstocks are not Pollyannish about what such an arrangement entails. Says Scott, “It took a lot of time and work to get to a place where we could [do this]. We had been raising kids together, so we were always in contact and did family stuff together. Like any relationship, conventional or not, it takes constant work and shared goals and values, which we have.”

Ruth concurs. “There is no happy divorce, despite what Gwyneth Paltrow would say. It feels like your whole world as you knew it blows up. But I think when everything landed, we realized that we still love each other and are each other’s family, and love being parents together to our children. So, we created a new normal.” That new normal even means going on vacations together sometimes. “There are days we are ready to throttle each other,” admits Ruth. “But that’s every relationship.”

A well-defined division of labor helps to keep the wheels turning. Scott basically takes care of the financial side of the business and the infrastructure and running of the store. Ruth largely does the buying and the merchandising, going to shows in New York and Paris. Both work with customers.

As Ruth explains it, “I bring my eye and my heart, and he brings his brain and his research skills. But together we make the body.”

An important feature of this arrangement from day one has been a rule that any new designer the store features must be agreed upon by both Bienstocks.  If Ruth finds a designer that she loves, but whom Scott doesn’t love, it doesn’t happen, and vice versa. Despite her impressive visual gifts, Ruth is quick to say, ‘I have no art background. I’m just a Jewish girl from Northwest London who has always loved to shop.”

Ruth Bienstock (nee Harounoff) was born in England but moved to Manhattan more than 30 years ago. Her mother’s family had businesses in the Diamond District on West 47th Street, and she spent nine years working in Italian gold jewelry. That was followed by 16 years as an Upper West Side real estate broker for Corcoran.

Scott was raised in Little Neck, Queens, where his father was a customs agent and his mother was an executive assistant for the Queens District Attorney.

The store was initially Scott’s idea. “I was a sales rep for a jewelry manufacturer, and I was visiting stores all around the country. I thought that there was an opportunity to do something a little different in the city and carry more unique items that were different than what were generally available. Less diamond intensive and more focused on design and affordability.”

The pair’s commitment to doing business on Columbus Avenue includes deep roots on the Upper West Side, where they have both lived for decades. The couple’s two children, Farris, now 27, and Phoebe, 23, went to public school in the neighborhood and still live here.

To people who dismiss shopping as being a tad “vulgar,” Ruth begs to differ.

“I celebrate material goods. I do. When you see these beautiful pieces in your home, they are there, they support you and give you comfort, and they surround you. Yes, they’re inanimate and there’s nothing better than people and hugs and love in your life. But when you are alone and you’re trying to grapple with what’s going on around you, and you look at something with beauty, that’s a moment. That’s a reprieve, an escape.”

Spoken like a true Upper West Side Material Girl!