Scent and the City

45 Years and Counting

Fellan Florists has been bunching bouquets since the Roaring Twenties

by cody gerard

Every week for the rest of the year, Our Town will celebrate our 45th anniversary by profiling a neighborhood business that has been around longer than we have. Know of a local business that should be on our list? Email us at news@strausnews.com

As you approach the corner of 65th Street and Second Avenue, the distinctive scent of flowers overrides some of the city’s more typical odors. Attribute this phenomenon to Fellan Florists, an Upper East Side flower shop in the fragrant business since 1927. It’s run by John Laskaris, whose father, Antonio Laskaris, bought it from the founder in 1950. The store has sprouted in different locations since, but has long ties to the Upper East Side, Laskaris said recently. “The original location being on 71st and Lexington,” he said.

“We moved from 71st and Lex, to 72nd and Third,” he said. “It was a huge corner store and Third Avenue was not the avenue it is today.”

The store has moved several times since, mostly because of increasing rents.

For a dozen years, the flower shop anchored at 61st and Third Avenue. It then moved, a decade ago, to its current location.

“We should be here for at least another five,” Laskaris said.

He credits Fellan’s longevity to “a lot of hard work and determination.” And also to the flowers. “We pride ourselves on our quality of service and quality or product,” he said.

The biggest boon for Fellan was when the elevated subway that used to run over Third Avenue was taken down. “We saw people coming in and the neighborhood grew.”

Despite its longtime, and however peripatetic, presence in the neighborhood, Fellan’s long-term future is uncertain.

“That’s an unknown,” Laskaris said. “Possibly my wife will continue, children no, they have other interests.”