cheaper eyeglasses

FOR YEARS I'VE BEEN wondering why eyeglasses cost so much. Even at LensCrafters, which is to eyewear what Gap is to clothes, you can easily pay $500 for a few pieces of plastic and screws. The last time I went in, I tried on a $250 pair of retro-librarian frames that made me look real smart. So smart that I asked the sales guy why they cost so much. He gave me a funny look. "They're designer," he huffed.

That did it. With a little digging, I found someone offering a much cheaper alternative. Seven years ago optician Randy Appelbaum sold his three Manhattan retail locations to start EyeglassDirect.com, one of the growing number of discount-eyewear Web sites. By typing in your prescription and measurements, you can buy a decent set of specs off his site for as little as $28. His secret: He built a lab in his brick townhouse in the suburban outskirts of Brooklyn. His two Ukrainian assistants, Vladimir and Alex, grind 20 to 50 pairs of eyeglasses a day under the fluorescent lights, using the same equipment you'd find in the back of an optician's store. Alex is moonlighting from his job making lenses for — you guessed it — LensCrafters.

-- SmartMoney, April 2007