With its twinkling Christmas fairy lights and the nostalgia of old toys, a London “shop” window never fails to charm passers-by.
A Punch and Judy puppet, old board games, model trains and airplanes, papier-mâché masks adorn the window of No. 43, Camden Passage, in the Islington neighborhood of north London.
Prospective buyers, intrigued by the bizarre collection, immediately begin looking for the entrance.
But number 43 is not a shop and there is nothing for sale here – a huge disappointment to the excited children who press their noses against the glass.
The nearby blue door with its festive garland remains firmly closed and no one answers the bell.
Located between Chipotle Mexican Grill and the jewelry store, neighboring shoppers say people are always asking where the entrance is.
In fact, the property is the former home of 88-year-old Bob Borzello, and the window display is the result of a lifelong obsession with collecting, or “hoarding” as he prefers to call it.
His daughter-in-law Belle Benson, 51, who recently took over the display with her daughter, told AFP: “Everyone comes and says, ‘Oh, look at this, I wonder when they open. ‘.”
“People love it, especially little kids,” Borzello said.
The property was once home to a poster shop, where Borzello and his ex-wife sold pin-ups of iconic figures such as Che Guevara.
Originally from Chicago, the former businessman and tabloid newspaper editor came to London in the 1960s to study at the London School of Economics.
After living in Chicago for a short time he and his now ex-wife returned to settle in London in 1967 and ran a poster shop and print business from the property.
accumulator device
However, Borzello was “accumulating” his vast collection of items taken from antique shops and junk sales.
“The fun of it is looking around and finding it… there’s a lot of stuff that I find interesting,” he said.
Borzello began exhibiting the objects a decade earlier, and the property that still houses the window is now something of an Islington institution.
The toy collection began with airplane models that would soon be the subject of another themed exhibit.
As well as toys, Borzello has also collected a number of souvenirs from the coronation of the late Queen Elizabeth II.
Other collections include watches, badges, wedding cake toppers, shop mannequins, his children’s old school reports, even his old Covid tests, which he keeps next to his phone.
The fireplace in Borzello’s nearby flat is surrounded by all things green, from glass vases and jewelery to women’s shoes, hats and necklaces.
He says he feels he learned the “collecting gene” from his Italian-American mother and that her children are also collectors in various ways.
“My daughter, she’s a ‘mudlark’ and her whole house is full of things she found from the (River) Thames,” he said, referring to people who search for treasure on the banks of rivers. .
Meanwhile, his “minimalist” son “has gone the other way”, although he “picks up everyone’s dying plants and takes care of them and brings them back to life”, making him a different kind of collector. , he said.
Despite his lifelong dislike of throwing anything away, Borzello laughed when Belle revealed that he had recently found her “slaving away on the shredder”.
He admitted that he was tearing his old love letters to pieces so that his grandchildren could not read them after his death, although he has insisted on keeping the pieces.
“I’m having a hard time getting rid of things,” he said.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
