‘An angel among angels’: Cambridge mourns death of Hubba Hubba owner Susan ‘Suzi’ Phelps
The beloved business owner passed away unexpectedly Saturday at the age of 79.
People around Greater Boston are mourning the unexpected death of Susan Phelps, the owner of the Cambridge-based alternative adult boutique Hubba Hubba, who passed away over the weekend at the age of 79.“My sister Suzi, as she was known was my best friend, confidant and ‘Soul-Sister,’” Caroline Rau, Phelps’s sister, said in an email to Boston.com. “One could not have a more caring and loving sister. A part of me has left with her and the loss is so great. I know everybody that knew her feels the same. She was ‘One of a Kind’ for sure and an icon in the Cambridge area. God Speed my Dear Sister.”The store announced Phelps’s passing Saturday on Facebook, and as news of her death spread, friends and customers shared memories of the important role “Suzi,” with her generosity, and her business played in the development and exploration of their own identities.“She made growing up bearable – and wicked fun,” Jen Millett wrote on Facebook. According to the store’s website, Phelps was the first in Boston to carry many punk and rock ‘n’ roll fashions, such as Doc Martens and Boy of London. The pioneering nature of the store and Phelps’s welcoming and caring nature were remarked on again and again by the more than 100 people on Facebook.
https://www.facebook.com/TheHubbaHubba/photos/a.10151260068917893.451106.163751972892/10155244654907893/?type=3
Jean Powers recalled saving up for months to take a trip to the store with her friends.
“We felt like total posers and also poor and clueless and too young, and she always treated us with respect and kindness,” she wrote in a Facebook comment. “It meant so much to us, little freaks trapped in a town that hated us and feeling like misfits everywhere we went.”
“Suzie — honesty, dignity, compassion,” Caleb Huntington wrote. “You created a place where people could be themselves. You were fearless. You were rooted, like a tree in the spring rain. You were beautiful. You are still.”
Xtine Santackas, who said she first met Phelps in 2004 when she went into Hubba Hubba to buy a corset, said the business owner was a “staple” in the goth scene.
Everybody, she said, went to see “Suzi.”
“Susan was extremely generous,” Santackas said. “She had the biggest heart and welcomed everybody that came into her store and welcomed everybody that came into the gothic community.”
Phelps opened Hubba Hubba at its first location in Central Square in 1978. The store has since relocated to Ellery Street, in between Harvard and Central squares.
Reign, who asked to only be identified by her first name and has worked at Hubba Hubba for 12 years and served as the store’s manager for five, said Phelps served as a “punk rock mom” to Boston’s alt community.
“Hubba Hubba was the only place that many alt youth felt welcomed and felt like they wouldn’t be judged, and instead would be encouraged to express themselves through fashion,” she told Boston.com. “It also was the only place that many of these punk and hardcore fashions were available so it naturally became a meeting place and home for people. Suzi was so fun and welcoming to people that everyone wanted to hang out there.”
Santackas, an organizer behind Cambridge’s ManRay events, said Phelps was always asking how she could help with the parties.
But her offers of assistance were not limited to business and community events.
Santackas recalled how the Hubba Hubba owner offered her brother a gift certificate to the store when he retired after an injury from the Marine Corps.
“She’s going to be remembered as someone who loved all and welcomed all,” Santackas said. “She‘s an angel among angels. She’ll never be forgotten, and she will be sorely missed.”
Teresa Niedzwiecki said her friend of more than 30 years was always the first person to ask what she could for others.
“People always try and say good things when people pass, but it’s all true about her,” Niedzwiecki said of Phelps. “She just had this habit of taking in wounded birdies — meaning people — and giving them the time of day and talking to them and listening to them and trying to help them out.”
She said Phelps, though private about her own life, was always quick to welcome new and old acquaintances with a “genuine” smile and a hug.
“She was the type of person that she would listen to your problem for hours, but if she had anything going on, you would never know,” Niedzwiecki said.
It didn’t matter how long it had been since Phelps had seen you, her friends agreed, she would just pick up where the conversation left off.
“She loved to bring people flowers or a treat and always would remember someone’s name or something they were telling her the last time she spoke with them,” Reign said. “And she always wanted to celebrate with some champagne.”
The Hubba Hubba manager said a memorial for Phelps will be held on November 15 and that anyone interested in attending should reach out through the Hubba Hubba Facebook page to be put on the guest list.
“Suzi helped so many people become who they are, and she will live on forever in all of us,” she said.
