Veteran Luggage Salesman, 93, Refuses to Pack It In

To see Harry Kupperblatt hustling around the luggage department at Macy’s, greeting customers with a boyish grin and heaving boxes around the floor, one would never guess his age.

On the job application he filled out two years ago, Kupperblatt fibbed. He listed his age as 66--quite a stretch, since he is now 93 with a birthday coming up soon. He is Macy’s oldest employee.

“I couldn’t just sit at home and watch TV. I’d go senile,” he said. “I need to work. I’m a workaholic.”

Kupperblatt said he was afraid the department store chain would not hire such an old man. He wanted to prove himself before disclosing his secret.

And has he proven himself.

Working only 16 to 20 hours each week, Kupperblatt sold $200,000 worth of luggage last year. He has twice been named “Sales Star of the Month.”

He’s a man who loves his luggage, bounding from suitcase to valise discussing various features--the sleek shapes, colors, how they handle.

With his aviator-style bifocals and smooth skin--a trait he says he got from his mother--Kupperblatt often is mistaken for someone much younger.

“You don’t look a day over 60!” exclaimed customer Patti Langellatti, 40, of Harrison, N.Y., upon learning his age.

Macy’s says it considers Kupperblatt an enormous asset and certainly doesn’t hold the fib against him.

“He’s very informative to his customers and he makes every effort to inform himself about the products he is selling. He’s a real people person,” said Tim Ray, a Macy’s spokesman.

Is Kupperblatt’s devotion to work all that startling, considering his age? Well, George Bush jumped out of a plane at 72, John Glenn is prepping for spaceflight at 76 and Sen. Strom Thurmond (R-S.C.) is still going at 95.

Kupperblatt’s first job was working in his mother’s candy store as a child, and he later cut garments during the Depression.

He opened a textile shop in New York, a business that employed 80 and did not close until 1975. He met his second wife, Edilia, in the late 1970s.

Kupperblatt said he tried to live the life of a well-heeled retiree with the former showgirl in Florida, but could not get used to hanging around the country clubs. He would take temporary jobs as a consultant to various textile firms, though Edilia begged him not to.

“She didn’t like it at all,” he said. “We didn’t need the money at all, but every once in a while I would get itchy.”

After Edilia died two years ago at age 84, Kupperblatt headed to Connecticut to be closer to relatives.

He took an apartment across the street from Stamford Town Center, where Macy’s is located. He started walking the neighborhood, looking for something to do, and decided he had to go back to work.

“You want to know what keeps me healthy? Work,” he said.

Stepdaughter Marsha Seldon, 55, said she worries Kupperblatt sometimes pushes himself too hard.

“For a time last year, he did work too much. He hates to turn them down,” she said. “Otherwise, I think it’s wonderful. It keeps him young.”

Other than occasional bouts of angina and a developing cataract in his right eye, Kupperblatt is in tiptop shape. His supervisors can’t seem to stop him from picking up merchandise in the stockroom.

“They yell at me, ‘Don’t you handle the boxes!’ ” he said, chuckling. “I do it anyway.”