Carole Scheer

Carole Scheer grew up in Coney Island and tells the story of her father, Anthony Cosmo Pomaro, who owned and operated Cosmo Topper's Beauty Parlor on Mermaid Avenue. After serving in the Air Force during WW II, he attended beauty school and opened his salon on Coney Island's Mermaid Avenue at West 36th Street in 1950. He later moved to to a larger space on Mermaid between West 32nd and West 33rd. Cosmo became president of New York's Hairdressers Board of Trade and won numerous competitions. The business was so successful that he bought the Mermaid Avenue building and expanded into three store fronts. He operated there until 1973 when he closed the business, went back to college, got a master's degree, and became a special ed art teacher in the NYC school system. "Cosmo," as he was known, was an inventor and also a gifted painter and sculptor.