"Genius!" The Most Shoppable Window In Beacon Right Now Is At Echo Boutique

Don’t all rush at once…space yourselves…but one of the most innovative shop windows in Beacon right now is at Echo Boutique at 470 Main Street, on the east end of town near the mountain. This boutiques with a wide curated selection of women’s clothing, kids toys, and some men’s accessories as well, was one of the first stores to voluntarily shut down - even before the Executive Order. Now, they are one of the first windows on Main Street to organize inventory in such a way that people can shop by number from the other side of the glass.

Owner Karen Donohue has a 14 year old daughter in school. When districts closed state-wide, so too did she on Main Street. Trouble is, Karen did not have a website to fall back on while her doors were closed, and remain closed during the phased reopening across the country and in Dutchess County specifically. But Karen is no newbie. She is a veteran of Main Street, having run her shop here for 19 years, always changing its inventory and display, depending on her mood and customer reactions. “I opened the shop a short while before 9/11 happened, so I wasn’t sure I’d survive. But I’m still here,” she tells A Little Beacon Blog. Karen also lives with Lyme disease, so summoning strength can at times be challenging.

“I started in a little 10x10 space as an art gallery next door to where the Korean deli, Seoul Kitchen, used to be.” That small storefront space she is referring to changed to a home brew beer shop for a minute, and is now part of No. 3 Reading Room & Photo Books Works, who bought the building and transformed it to an artist studio live/work space. “470 Main Street is my 3rd space on the east end of Main Street. I went from the little one to around the corner, which later became Waddle and Swaddle and is now Hyperbole. Then to my current spot at 470 Main Street, which is basically two storefronts in one.”

Extremely comfortable in the visual, physical space, Karen has a degree in photography from Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) and went on to be a prop stylist for almost a decade. Her window displays are known in Beacon for being extremely imaginative.

When she was comfortable with reopening in her own way, she and her daughter headed back into the store to bring as much as they could to display in the windows. Parents were eager to buy the toys she carries in the store, both to support her, and also to benefit from her educational and science-based selection.

Each item in the window is labeled in a box, and a sign with ordering instructions is taped in the window. Customers are told to snap a picture or simply text 845-863-3166 with what they want, and porch delivery within Beacon will be arranged. We can tell you this, however: this is a fraction of what you’ll find inside of Echo. Karen is always going to market to bring back new designers and toy makers. If you need something else, just ask her!

As for the lovely bras you see in the window, those are from The Bra Fit Expert, Christina (Tina) Faraj, who permanently pops up inside the shop with her wide selection of high quality women’s under things and comfy PJs. The benefit of Tina was her expert fitting, but if you contact her, she can telacoach you through a fitting christina.faraj@gmail.com.

When A Little Beacon Blog first shared a video of her shop in our Instastories, the positive reaction we received was swift. Several people shared heart eye emojis and explained: “Genius!”

What Beacon’s shop owners (and shop owners across the country) have done to stay connected to their customers has been astonishing. Many don’t qualify for unemployment because of their business entities, and applying for the PPP loan could be challenging, depending on what type of business they are. Translation: some businesses receive a fraction of stimulus funds, as some business owners are stuck between a rock and a hard place with how rules around these stimulus monies work and change on an almost daily basis.

Main Street business owners are always hustling hard, and they rose to the challenge of this crisis.

Shop Echo at 470 Main Street by shopping their window (spacially distance yourself), and look in their Instagram for product postings, as well as their Facebook.