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Astoria Characters The SewingMachine Savior

Eleven. That’s the number that forever altered Sakis Karagiannakis’ life.
That’s how old he was when his father died, paving the way for his becoming the prime provider for his mother and two sisters.
OK, he did get to finish grammar school and his older sister did get hired out, too, but by 13, he was working full time repairing bicycles and motorcycles.
“I always wanted to be an airplane mechanic, but I never got to go to school,” says Sakis, owner of SK, the neighborhood’s only sewing machine fix-it shop and supplier of stitchery supplies like foot pedals, feed dogs and throat plates. “But that job gave me the chance of a life because my boss told me to go to technical school. I took classes every night for four years.”
Photo by Nancy A. Ruhling
Sakis the sewing machine repairman.
When he graduated, he got a job in a fabric factory, where he eventually started repairing and maintaining sewing machines. “It took me a long time to learn to fix them,” he says.
Thinking of 11 reminds him of another significant number: 40. That’s how many years ago he left his hometown of Larissa, Greece for America.
“My boss wouldn’t give me a raise, so I decided to come to New York, where my mother’s sister lived.”
Sakis, an affable grandfather with a bushy grey mustache that softens his stern expression, shrugs in resignation. It had to be done. It wasn’t an easy choice; his sisters were married with children, and he was living with his mother.
Photo by Nancy A. Ruhling
Sakis stitches up old machines like this one.
“I forced her to come here,” he says, adding that he joined her six months later. “She loved me so much, and we were so close that she would never tell me no for anything.”
As soon as he got here, he knew it was a mistake, but he didn’t have enough money to go back. What’s more, his boss in Greece had tripled his salary while he was waiting to get his immigration papers, so he could have stayed after all.
“The apartment we rented was filthy,” he says. “I’d never seen anything so bad. And I couldn’t work in the jobs I wanted because I didn’t speak English.”
Photo by Nancy A. Ruhling
Sakis gives a repaired machine a test run.
So he took a job in a noodle factory that was “too hard” work. His pay was $65 to $75 per week. “I had to take a second job on Sundays in Manhattan parking cars in a garage; with tips, I made about $45. That was a lot of money back then. At night, I took English classes.”
After two years of struggling, he got a job with a sewing machine repair company. He wanted his own business and got a friend to let him use his basement, which he filled with $4,000 worth of parts he bought.
“After work, I went to the basement and worked, sometimes until one in the morning,” he says. “And I worked every weekend there.”
On one of his rare days off, he met the girl of his dreams at a Greek dance.

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