Bill Greaney Closes Barber Shop in Guild Square After 22 Years-August 13, 1980

The candy cane pole won’t whirl any more for Bill Greaney. After 22 years, he’s quitting the hair-cutting business. Greaney blamed high overhead costs as he explained why he decided to hang up his shears.

He cut hair at the $4.50 union minimum in his Guild Square shop located in the Talbot Block on August 2 for the last time. Although a sign in the window last week indicated he would merely be on vacation, Greaney opted not to reopen. At age 50, he plans to start a new career as a municipal worker in a neighboring town. Aside from soaring fuel, tax, and rent expenses, Greaney expressed deep frustration with parking difficulties in the Guild Square area, attributing the issue to a lack of parking meters.

Reflecting on the closure, Greaney admitted feeling “sort of a little loss. It’s always nice working for yourself,” adding that he will greatly miss his loyal clientele. Greaney originally began his career in South Norwood across from the Colonial Coffee Shop on Washington Street.

He moved uptown 11 years prior to take over the shop previously run by his late father-in-law, Harvey Paquin. At the time, it operated as a three-man shop, but cultural shifts took a toll. “The long hair just killed that,” Greaney noted, having worked alone for the past six years. Throughout his career, he maintained a traditional barbershop, catering primarily to an older clientele without chasing modern trends. “Norwood is not a hair-styling town,” he observed, though he acknowledged that conventional barbershops were largely struggling as a dying trade despite steady business for his own chair.

Archival Note: This article has been dynamically reconstructed from the original public record print archives of the Patriot Ledger