New Sporting Goods Store to Open

A passion for mountain climbing and missionary work has brought Sun and Kap Bok Oh from Korea to Alaska to Hoboken, and soon to Morningside Heights, where their fifth Windy Corners sporting goods store will open at 113th Street and Broadway.

Windy Corners will move into the vacant corner lot that was occupied by Crosstown Sports until it filed for Chapter 11 backruptcy last year.

The store went bankrupt not because of the failure of its Morningside's Heights location, but because of losses at its other location in the New York area, according to Director of Institutional Real Estate George Giaquinto.

He said Crosstown's predecessor, Manhattan Sports, failed because it did not offer the quality of merchandise that the Morningside Heights community demanded.

It is Windy Corners' commitment to providing a diverse offering of the best products, and the Ohs personal attention to running their company, that Giaquinto hopes will allow the store to survive where the two previous sporting goods stores in Morningside Heights failed.

Like all of Windy Corners' stores, its Morningside Heights location will be unique--a fact that Giaquinto said the University looks for in choosing businesses to which to lease space. Columbia, he said, wants stores that will be able to meet the diverse needs of the neighborhood as well as businesses that possess the financial stability to survive the ups and downs of the school year.

Giaquinto also said the store will answer a long time residential complaint about the difficulty of buying socks in Morningside Heights.

Sun Oh commented that the new store would be "pretty much the same concept--outdoors and sports. If we need to, we will do a whole wall of backpacks for students if that's what they want."

Kap Bok Oh said he plans to expand the children's clothing line in Windy Corners to appeal to the neighborhood's families. He also hopes to help organize groups of students for hiking trips, provide guides, and even rent expensive hiking equipment to students.

Approximately eighteen years ago, Kap Bok Oh and Sun Oh, his wife, left Korea for Indonesia to follow Sun Oh's calling to be a missionary. After spending two years in Indonesia, they journeyed to Alaska.

Kap Bok Oh said Denali National Park was the perfect destination for his family because there, they followed both of their passions by being able to "spread the Bible and [have] a nice mountain to climb." With the goal of converting Eskimos to Christianity, they settled in the shadow of Mt. McKinley.

While Sun Oh was a missionary, Kap Bok Oh occupied his time climbing the mountain and volunteering in Denali National Park as a rescue worker. He never lost touch with Korea, returning often to organize mountain climbing expeditions and to offer advice about safety. Today, however, Kap Bok Oh has found another calling. "I used to be a mountain climber, now I am a businessman," he said.

But it was mountain climbing that guided Sun and Kap Bok Oh's decision to open the first Windy Corners at the base of Mt. McKinley in Talkeeta, Alaska. Kap Bok Oh said they opened the store to ease frustrations of his fellow international mountain climbers, many of whom came to Alaska not only to climb Mt. Mckinley, but also to find the world's best equipment.

The Ohs believed sporting goods to be their calling, and took what Sun Oh described as a "huge risk" in opening a store in a town of about five hundred. Kap Bok Oh said their idea was successful in part because he was so familiar with the equipment mountain climbers needed to explore at Mt. McKinley. Their success allowed them steadily to expand in Alaska, building stores in Anchorage and then in Wasila.

Kap Bok Oh said he has learned a great deal from each store he has opened, but he found that he lacked home-field advantage when he expanded to the East Coast. The decision to open a store in Hoboken, N.J. was ultimately driven by their commitment to missionary work, since they said they received a calling to carry their ideas to New York City.

Said Sun Oh, "The ultimate city is Manhattan. Hoboken is a stop-over."

The Ohs are not strangers to the Columbia community, having volunteered at a few services with a Korean Student's group at St. Paul's Cathedral.

Though she admits she had never expected to open a store in Morningside Heights, Sun Oh feels "extremely excited" about the opportunity.