Times Observer photo by Stacey Gross Jason Passinger stands beside the machine he uses to sand shoes.

Jason Passinger’s family came to America from Italy. The “tip of the boot,” as his cousin, “Little Tony” Franchina — who also goes by “little shoe” — puts it.

Olive farmers by trade, the family immigrated to Jamestown, N.Y. over three generations ago.

Passinger’s uncle, “Big” Tony Franchina, learned how to fix shoes from his father, whose father before him had learned from a man in Jamestown. Big Tony, who goes by “big shoe,” opened his own shop in Jamestown in 1983 and quickly set to work teaching his son Little Tony the trade.

Said Little Tony, he became a cobbler by the age of nine, learning from his father and working in his shop.

And Little Tony, who now lives in Westfield, N.Y., said he continued the family tradition, opening his own shoe repair business in 1991.

Passinger, on the other hand, followed his own father into the construction business, with his branch of the family tree situated in Warren. But one day, said Passinger, they got rained out on the construction field and he got called in to help his cousin Little Tony in the Westfield shoe shop.

It appealed to him, said Passinger. Maybe because, as he says, “it’s so much like construction,” with nails, hammers, and sanding equipment being staples of both industries.

He already had the knowledge of the tools, said Passinger. But this was a new way to use them. “It was hands on,” said Passinger, “which is what I like to do.” Just like construction. “It’s surprising, how well they go together.”

Passinger said he wound up spending a month or two apprenticing with his uncle Big Tony before heading into a three-year, off-and-on stint at Little Tony’s shop, when he wasn’t doing construction with his father.

His first task, the first skill Passinger said he mastered as a cobbler, though, had nothing to do with constructing or repairing shoes.

He shined them.

“You learn how to polish them, make them look nice,” said Passinger, before you move on to the more technical aspects of the trade.

But after about four years, said Passinger, learned the trade he had.

Cobbling is a niche market.

Passinger estimates that there are only about 2,500 cobblers in the United States.

“It’s an old art,” he said, “so everyone who does it is swamped.”

But, Passinger said, that’s a good thing. “I like working with my hands. I like helping people and it provides a service to the community,” he said, that most people can’t provide.

The thing he likes most about being a cobbler, which he’s moving into full time, giving up more and more time with construction and expanding hours at his shoe repair shop in North Warren, is “taking something that was headed to the garbage and getting it back on the shelf.”

As Passinger showed a sole peeling away from the body of a shoe he was currently working on, and then the shoe’s mate, with its sole completely removed, he went through the cobbler’s process of peeling, sanding, nailing, cutting, and shaping a shoe back to life.

“People bring in an old, worn down item,” said Passinger, “and they’re thinking about just throwing it away and I make it new again for them. It’s really cool,” he said, to see how happy people are to find their shoes can be as good as new.

Said Little Tony Franchina of taking Passinger on as an apprentice, “I wanted a family person. I wanted to invest my time in someone who knows the family and cares about the family — who cares about the business.”

And Passinger, said Little Tony, “is smart that way. He wanted to keep it in the family, too.”

Passinger and Little Tony agreed, “we do something no one else (in the area) does.” And it certainly, for Passinger, helps keep work and income a bit more consistent, as construction can be an on again off again sort of gig.

Said Little Tony, it was rewarding for him to develop a relationship with Passinger through Passinger’s apprenticeship. The cousins, who’d lived only 18 miles apart as children and came from a large family, said they rarely saw each other as kids. Passinger’s apprenticeship and eventual solo act – opening his own shop in North Warren a little over a year ago – has brought that big family even closer, and strengthened the family business of cobbling in the process.

Passinger’s shop — Jay’s Shoe Repair — is located at 23 Jackson Run Road in North Warren, and he can be reached by calling — we’re not even kidding — (814) 723-SHOE (7463).

In addition to shoes, Passinger also repairs leather goods, luggage, purses, and zippers, as well as the expected shoes, boots, heels, and soles.