When you want to bag your baggage

Years ago – make that decades ago – bus stations,train stations, and aiport terminals had lockers where you could store your luggage. Then those lockers began disappearing from public spaces.

Some trace such their disappearance to the 1970s, after a bomb believed to be hidden in a coin-operated locker killed 11 people and wounded dozens more at New York’s LaGuardia Airport. By 1995, after Muslim extremists were convicted of planning a terrorist campaign in New York, Grand Central Terminal shut down its baggage, the New York Times reported. The terminal’s lockers had disappeared even before that, partly because of security concerns but also to discourage their use by homeless people. (Source: WaPo)

But the need to dump your luggage didn’t disappear.

Sometimes you have a couple of hours before your train and you want to walk around the city without dragging your roller bag behind you. Sometimes you take the offer to get on the later flight and all of a sudden have enough hours to buzz into a new town and do a bit of tourism. Sometimes you finish your business and have time to kill before your next call. Sometimes you’ve checked out of your hotel, have someplace to go, but don’t want to have to backtrack to your hotel and retrieve a bag you’ve left with the bellhop. So there you are, stuck with your overnight bag. Your brief case. Your laptop. What a drag!

But if you’re fortunate enough to live in Boston, NY, Philadelphia or Washington DC, and you’re fortunate enough to have a StoreMe location nearby, you can drop your bags off and run. Or walk. Or stroll. Or window shop. Or lunch. Or whatever.

StoreMe is the brainchild of Peter Korbel. It’s:

…an app-based service that allows people to park their gym bags or luggage with cooperating merchants for short periods of time. The idea — which is sort of a cross between Uber and Airbnb for luggage — transforms unused storage space around the city into something like those coin-operated lockers that used to be found in many airports, bus depots and train stations. StoreMe users can take the backpack off their backs for as little as $7.50 a day.

I think that this is a terrific idea. So much so that I’m actually toying with the idea of making a small investment in the company. (No, I didn’t win the 50-50 at Fenway the other day, but – wonder of wonders – a little startup I did some work for when I first began freelancing just got sold and they’d granted me some shares that –wonder of wonders – turned out to be worth something. Given that I could have papered my condo with options from companies I worked for that never stuck their nose above water, shares in companies I worked for (and thus should have known better than to invest in) that went to zero so all I ever got out of them was a capital loss, it was a pleasant surprise to have, if not my ship, then my rowboat come in.)

Anyway, to get back to StoreMe being a terrific idea, success will rest on having drop off locations convenient to wear you want to drop your stuff off. And on your being willing to drop your bag off at that venue.

I took a quick look at the places that have been signed up in Boston and I recognized a few – convenient to tourist locations and/or colleges and universities – and willing to store bags for up to 7 days. Others were a bit more off the beaten track – at least off of my beaten track. But one caught my eye. My old friend, the Underground Express on Winter Street, a store I blogged about in January, writing:

What intrigues me about this really crappy store is not the lottery tickets and three-dollar umbrellas. It’s the display out front, a display that’s been there for years. This display has never been attractive. Even in its prime, these were not exactly nice suitcases. But over the years, this luggage has become patchily sun-faded. And cracked in places. There are holes in each of these bags. Sun-faded you can live with. But cracks and holes in luggage? I wouldn’t be surprised to find that these suitcases have become rats nests. (I will not be exploring this theory, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see a rat sticking its twitchy nose out when I’m passing by after dark.)

And, oh, yes, you may not be able to see it clearly, but these bags are roped together with heavy duty metal rope. So that someone won’t steal them? (Source: Pink Slip)

Would I trust my luggage with this place? Hmmmmm….

Still, I think that StoreMe is on to something. Some times you just want to reduce your burden, lighten your load, drift around hands free. Maybe not enough to drop my bag at the Underground Express. But, theoretically at least, I’m down with it.