Saving the Garment Center

Thu, 12 Jul 2007

I wish you the best of the luck.
Our graduates know that the place to go for their future is NYC and it's tightly woven garment district. We can shop anywhere these days - all districts looking the same and feeling homogenous. Where else can a designer run across the street to find the perfect missing trim or fabric accent? Where would the creators and makers be without the small shops for snaps, buttonholes, hangers as well as yardage and trims and coffee vendors? We send our students to the NYC garment center for fabric shopping and trim buying in a place that is like no other. I will forward this petition to as many people on the west coast as possible. We are big on sustainability out here so we are all for keeping the garment center alive.

Amy Williams
Chair Fashion Design Department
California College of the ARTS

Support all your American Manufacturers

Fri, 6 Jul 2007

Hello,

I am a Glove Manufacturer here in NYC. Thanks for sending me your info. I want to join you and be a part of your Think Tank. I will be at the strategy meeting on July 11 and will help out on July 18th. My personal experience is this: Recently my Landlord on 28th Street decided not to renew my lease. As I searched in the Garment area I was told several times that landlords do not want machinery and manufacturing in their spaces anymore. It was very discouraging for me to meet people who have been in their spaces for decades feeling the squeeze to move. I cried several times when I got home. Luckily I found a space near where I was and the Landlord agreed to give me a lease . I thought it was going to be easy to find a space in the Garment Area but quickly learned this is not the case.

Everyone is so in love with China now and all the best designers are jumping ship to have them do their production and design samples it seems. I don't think we have the politicians on our side either.

Regards, Lacrasia Duchein
My Motto is " Support all your American Manufacturers".

LaCrasia Gloves
Our address is: 1181 Broadway, 8th Fl, NYC 10001
Phone number: 212-803-1600

We make gloves for Hollywood, Broadway, Rap & Rock stars & You!!!
http://www.lacrasia.com

Hey!

Fri, 13 Jul 2007

hi...
I would love to participate in your campaign. I just moved to NYC, simply for the reason of being near and become a part of the NYC's garment district. It pains me to think that city planners would ever jeopardize the most important U.S. areas for fashion design!

With sympathy, however, I can not make your meeting... I am traveling. Is there anything else I can do to help? This cause is important to me.

I will forward your letter to as many designers i know.

Please keep me posted....

Ray

A letter to the Deputy Mayor

Tue, 10 Jul, 2007

Mr. Daniel L. Doctoroff
Deputy Mayor for Economic Development
City Hall
New York NY 10007

Dear Deputy Mayor Doctoroff:

I am writing on behalf of Studio Rouge, Inc. to express concern about the future of the Garment District. Studio Rouge is one of the many costume shops operating in midtown Manhattan building costumes for the theatrical, film, dance, opera, photographic ad and television industries and fashion industries.

New York really is the fashion capital of the WORLD, and the hundreds of small businesses in the Garment District are the industry's backbone but not just for fashion. We need all these Garment District businesses to execute the costumes for Broadway, Off-Broadway, Dance, Television and Film, usually under immediate circumstances.. The sample rooms, cut and sew contractors, pattern grading services, belt-makers, buttonholers, embroiderers, fabric, trim and button suppliers are crucial to our company's ability to carry out quick orders and to deal with the emergencies that may arise in production. There are about 40 B-way venues, and over 70 off-B-way theatres, not to mention the stages which are producing Dance, Television.

In particular, it would be impossible to organize collections for Fashion Week, an event which brings in $500 million to New York annually, without the presence of these support businesses. Even companies that produce overseas do most of their sample development right here in the Garment District. We haven't even considered all the students who use these resources from F.I.T., Parsons and Pratt Institutes.

Film production in NYC generates just over $5 billion dollars annually. The Mayor's office is an advocate for all kinds of productions, from major feature films and television series to commercials, music videos, documentaries and student films. (taken from the Mayor?s office own website:
NYC Production

There are many production companies like ours that rely on a functioning Garment District, yet we are beginning to see alarming numbers of support businesses lose their leases. We therefore respectfully ask that the revised zoning will provide enough space for a sufficient production and supplier core. Losing much more of the space that these support businesses currently occupy, which is a small fraction of the District?s overall space, would harm the fashion/entertainment industries in ways that no one can foresee.

Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,
Rosalie A. Zingales, owner Studio Rouge, Inc.

1466 Broadway

Wed, 15 Aug 2007

I have worked in the garment center for over 30 years. My dad Manufactured on 35th and 36th St. My company Colorblind has had a showroom in 1466 Broadway for 12 years and now we have been evicted by Isthimar/Sitt for a hotel that I doubt will ever come. I have 3.5 years left on my lease but they are forcing and have forced everyone from the building.

I have looked for a new showroom for 6 months. The prices went up each month I was looking. Many of the main clothing buildings are not willing to rent to garment companies prefering to wait for "Google" or whatever higher paying clients they think are over the next horizen.

The current market seem intent on getting rid of most of the clothing companies that aren't Ralph Lauren. Certainly anything that isn't a showroom (back office etc.) can't possibly survive.

Mark Cohen T: 212.840.1480 • F: 212.840.1122 1466 B’way Suite 1208 • New York, NY 10036 

First Chicago, now SF, nipping at our heels. . .

Tues, 16 Aug 2007

Yetunde Schuhmann's quest to make Sixth Street the city's fashionable address

Sylvia Rubin, Chronicle Fashion Editor

Sunday, August 12, 2007

San Francisco has a new, self-appointed fashion czarina - and she has big plans for seedy Sixth Street.

She sees beyond the graffiti, beyond the alleyway aromas, beyond the pawnshops and the transient hotels.

As the first president of the San Francisco Innovative Design Council, Yetunde Schuhmann has visions of finally putting the Bay Area on the fashion map - with a wide-ranging plan that incorporates incentives for local manufacturing, expanding existing runway events and securing affordable studio and retail space on Sixth Street that would serve as fashion central for local designers.

"I want San Francisco to be an epic fashion center," says Schuhmann, a 34-year-old single mother who is the marketing manager for the French-American Chamber of Commerce in San Francisco.

Her agenda, though ambitious, has piqued the interest - and the official sponsorship of - Mayor Gavin Newsom.

Since April, there have been four meetings of the council at City Hall, overseen by Mike Farrah, the mayor's senior adviser, and attended by a handful of local fashion designers, including local gown designers Colleen Quen and Lily Samii. "Although we're not quite up to the capacity to implement her entire vision yet, we think she's right that fashion is an important industry in San Francisco," said Farrah. "We're getting beat by New York and Los Angeles, and we need a way to help incubate this industry. We're focused on bringing business to Sixth Street."

Newsom - while a much more conservative dresser than his predecessor Willie Brown - still cuts a dapper figure at public functions. In a statement, he said he thought the time was right for such a project.

"Our support for fashion designers is part of a broader effort to strengthen and grow the fashion industry in San Francisco," he said in an e-mail. "Fashion designers are an important part of the industry. They hire sewers, cutters and other designers; they contract with apparel manufacturers who in turn hire workers to produce the clothes; and they buy fabrics and supplies that support other sectors like textiles. All are important jobs we want to keep and grow in San Francisco."

The momentum began after Schuhmann sent a nine-page business proposal to City Hall, one inspired by the successful Toronto Fashion Incubator ( www.fashionincubator.com ) and New York's Council of Fashion Designers of America (headed by Diane von Furstenberg).

"The fashion sector in San Francisco lacks cohesiveness," she wrote. "This is, in part, because many of the main players within this industry are having difficulty keeping their heads above water financially ... but if well-respected individuals in San Francisco with national and international influence in the fashion industry band together for this cause, there is a good chance that others will follow."

Samii, a well-known evening-wear designer and a longtime booster of the local fashion scene, said it would be good to have a strategic, centralized effort that could draw designers together.

"We're all floating - there is no center," she said.

Lilly Stamets, the regional director of the San Francisco branch of Fashion Group International, a nonprofit professional organization that helps promote the fashion industry, agrees that "the San Francisco fashion industry needs a voice."

"We (FGI) have a national and international voice, but we need a stronger local voice," she said. "We work with local designers from the educational side, but not the business side."

Three years ago, Stamets started a fashion "incubator" in collaboration with City College to help young designers get off the ground. But, Stamets says, "we were encouraged by the New York office to only recruit members of executive status and not emerging designers."

There is "such a need for young talent to have a business model, and that's why I'm all for this new idea," she says.

Until recently, San Francisco had a nonprofit fashion trade association - San Francisco Fashion Industries - that had been around for 80 years, producing educational seminars and helping with designers' essential production needs. Last year, though, the president retired and it ceased operation.

Still, fashion and San Francisco share a long history - starting with the Gold Rush and Levi's denim, which still keeps its headquarters in the city. There are at least half a dozen colleges or universities with large fashion programs; major design talents like Derek Lam and Peter Som were born and raised here. Vanessa, Samantha and Victoria Traina are internationally known for their sense of style. Dede Wilsey is committed to bringing fashion exhibitions to the de Young museum. Successful designers such as Julie Chaiken, Dema Grim, Sunhee Moon, Susan Hengst, Diana Slavin and Erica Tanov, among others, are synonymous with San Francisco.

There should be many more like them, says custom clothier Al Ribya of Al's Attire in North Beach.

"Where does young talent go for sewing contractors, pattern services, pleating work, cutting work, embroidery - the infrastructure of the business?" he asks. "There is no one gelling this. We've got the de Young; we've got tons of students. There's our local fashion week. We have a basis for something like a fashion incubator here," he says.

In fact, one of Schuhmann's primary goals is to try and establish a much larger fashion week than now exists in the city by working with the producers of the four big fashion events held here.

"I want to work with the city and fashion show producers, for example, GenArt, Passport, IMG (which put on a one-night fashion event here in March) and the locally produced San Francisco Fashion Week - to have them all hold their events the same week every year and declare an official 'San Francisco Fashion Week,' where the association and I would help coordinate all the different people, so we're all working together."

San Francisco Fashion Week, which is in its fourth year, has traditionally been held in August (as it will be this year, beginning on Aug. 23 at the San Francisco Design Center) and produced by event planner Erika Gessin.

Schuhmann's proposal suggests that late February would be better, and that if all the events were condensed into a single week, they would have a "more powerful impact and offer higher visibility to the city."

Los Angeles and New York have Fashion Week events sponsored by IMG (the San Francisco event brought in models like Naomi Campbell and Gemma Ward). "If local designers and producers do not band together, it's possible that IMG could move to establish a Fashion Week in San Francisco that could make it difficult for smaller, emerging designers in the Bay Area to compete," Schuhmann argues in her proposal, "whereas a unified front could attract more buyers, media coverage and industry insiders."

(There are "no immediate plans" for IMG to come back to San Francisco next spring, according to the IMG press office.)

Because her proposal is so new, Schuhmann has yet to give up her day job and is clocking the fashion job hours - unpaid - out of her Hayes Valley home.

After obtaining her MBA and immersing herself in the business world, she branched out into fashion, first by handling publicity for a couple of local designers and producing small fashion shows for her employer, which is where she met designer Quen.

That meeting was a turning point, Schuhmann says.

"(Quen) showed me the inner workings of the business. I saw this talented woman who is trying to get recognized outside of San Francisco and having trouble with financing. That got me thinking about what the city could do, what I could do, and that's my passion now," she said.

Schuhmann, who was born and raised in Berkeley, also draws inspiration from her experience living in France, where she earned her business degree from L'Inseec Grand Ecole de Commerce in Bordeaux. She hopes the Bay Area will soon be as well known for its cutting-edge style as the French.

"San Francisco style, to me, is very laid-back," she says. "There's potential here, but it needs some tweaking. I think San Franciscans have creativity and flair, but I wish we were a little more refined."

For now, she is focusing on finding office space for the organization's headquarters, securing investors and creating a board of directors comprising the city's most fashion-forward people.

Susan Langdon, a former fashion designer and now executive director of Toronto's program, wished her well, saying, "I hope she has a lot of patience and is a good fundraiser."

Langdon's program, now in its 20th year, struggled at first. Five years after the city of Toronto helped start up and fund the program, the seed money ran out. The bulk of Langdon's operating budget - about $450,000 - now comes from private funding and membership fees. The organization is known for its residency program, in which juried designers pay subsidized rental rates for studios housed in a former coat factory; and a "New Labels" runway show is held each year.

Chicago also took cues from Toronto and started a similar program last year. That city's first fashion director, Melissa Turner, helps put on "Fashion Focus," a series of runway shows featuring local designers. Last year's 12-day event drew 25,000 to 30,000 spectators to a huge tent in Millennium Park.

"It's a lot of work," Turner says of her job. Funding comes from sponsorships, grants and appropriate city departments, depending on what type of program it is, but "there is no designated yearly budget," she says.

When told about Schuhmann's Sixth Street idea, Langdon says she can relate. Toronto's program also has seen its share of setting up shop in transitional neighborhoods.

"The Parkdale district here was a pretty sketchy part of town when we moved in 1999. Nobody wanted to go here. And then it got built up, and by this year, we are being forced out by high rents!" she says. "We've done such a good job of helping to revitalize a neighborhood, a big condo developer bought our building."

The Mission District already seems like a de facto "fashion district," a destination point for shoppers who flock to the numerous indie boutiques that line Valencia Street. Hayes Street and the Haight are also familiar local designer havens. And Sixth Street is starting to show signs of change - a new French restaurant, called Split Pea Seduction, opened recently and the new Federal Building (a block away on Seventh) casts an elegant shadow in the general direction.

"What better way to revitalize the area than with fashion?" Schuhmann asks. "Five or 10 years from now, this area could be a fashion destination, but I know we have to start with baby steps."

Costume Designer

Mon, 20 Aug 2007

I am a costume designer. Specifically also the Associate Designer for Phantom of the Opera. Most of the costume shops who build costumes and accessories for our show are located currently in the garment district and near FIT. Which puts them also in close proximity to the live theatre industry, which is their primary client: The Broadway Community. We need them and they need us. And we need them NOT to be in Connecticut or New Jersey or an hour away on the subway. Actors have to go to fittings. Fittings have to happen adjacent to rehearsal time. A fitting that’s too far away is also too expensive. Anything that affects the bottom line for a Broadway producer gets passed along to the ticket buyers. Our costume shops, milliners, & cobblers don‘t manufacture goods for retail: All the work is CUSTOM. I am proud to say we treat our workers well, and they get health insurance. These are not “sweat shops”. We employ a LARGE, highly skilled workforce. They pay their taxes and send their children to college. In addition to the costume-related businesses, there are many vendors we depend upon who sell us fabric, trim, millinery supplies, sparkle, flowers, feathers: everything you can imagine that goes into a costume. We need them. And we need them to be accessible. Already, just because of ONE building going up, 4 long-time show business vendors have had to re-locate, and struggled to stay in the neighborhood. Everyone knows that it costs a lot to move a business, and if they had to move again, I doubt they could ever financially recover, and we would lose them for good. The garment district is also home to a very diverse artistic community: In addition to designer’s studios (both fashion and theatrical), there are also video production, graphics production, and corporate entertainment companies. The garment district is a healthy, diverse, thriving place. If it isn’t broken, then why is the city trying to “fix” it? Thank you. Mary “Sam” Fleming

Costume Designers/Stylists

Mon, 20 Aug 2007

We are costume designers and stylists who have lived and worked in New York since the mid 80's. One of the most unique things about New York is its "districts" and the garment district has been invaluable to all in our profession. In such a fast paced city with so many other working challenges, it is imperative that ones supplies and resources be centrally located and the garment district is just that. We have also watched the few remaining real costume houses in New York either close completely or be faced with having to leave long standing locations or close all together. These businesses are crucial to my profession and many others. Having few to no costume rental resources in a city like New York is absurd and ultimately everything must then come mostly from LA. I urge those in power to realize the necessity and complexities of The Garment District and to truly evaluate the impact it would have on this city should it be lost.

Thank you,

Kurt & Bart 432 Pacific Street Brooklyn, Ny 11217 718 842 4451 Costume Designers Local 829

Broadway Way Shows

Mon, 20 Aug 2007

In the entertainment industry, of which my shop is a part, TIME is always of the essence. The fact that it is so for all industries is a given, but in the creation of a Broadway show, it is painfully obvious from the outset that there will never be enough time to satisfy all of the parties involved in this creative process. Unlike most businesses where the leap from idea to reality has been streamlined by computers and communication advances, the method of putting together a Broadway show is nearly as time-consuming now as it was in the early part of the last century. Actors, singers and dancers who are in rehearsal for a Broadway show are jealously guarded by their stage managers who wish to maximize the hours they are available for rehearsal. The scheduling of costume fittings, while absolutely essential to the process of creating a Broadway show, is nevertheless an intrusion on rehearsal time. This inconvenient reality creates scheduling problems for stage management who wish to minimize this intrusion. And so from the very early stages of rehearsal, the creation of costumes is a problematic enterprise...most especially for those producing the costumes where the physical process of manufacturing is inherently time-consuming.

As in centuries past, every article of clothing seen on a Broadway stage is specifically manufactured to create a theatrical illusion. Shoes, gloves, hats, hosiery, jewelry and often all of the clothing from the underwear to the blouses, dresses, shirts, jackets, ties, capes, coats covering them or whatever whimsical fantasy the designer has dreamed up for the characters onstage are hand made or must be purchased from hard to find sources. Imagine the complexity of this enterprise where each article can only be made once its raw elements are procured. Leather for shoes and gloves and belts. Every sort of material for hats and clothing: buckram, felt, cottons, silks, wools, laces, ribbons, sequins, rhinestones...even plastic, all must be purchased for this process to be made possible. With every individual involved well aware that 'the clock is ticking'. No time to waste, deadlines always looming, production always behind an implacable schedule. All this being so, it can come as no surprise that the majority of businesses servicing the Broadway industry have chosen their locations to be as close to the rehearsal studios as possible and these are as close to the garment center as it is possible to be.

The garment center may once have been the prime location for the manufacture of clothing but times have changed. The nature of large-scale manufacture may have shifted to other locations, but the creation of designs, samples and patterns for production remains fixed in the neighborhood which was once dominated by factories. The nature of the work may have altered, but the industry is as vibrant as ever and unquestionably more diverse. Servicing the entertainment industry is not necessarily a part of "Seventh Avenue", but both worlds overlap in their need to have all suppliers of materials concentrated in as close a geographical area as possible. For the costume shops, whose needs are pressed by time, it is vitally important that all vendors be near to hand. With the rehearsal studios at the Duke on 42nd Street, the location of the costume shops being mere blocks away is as important as having suppliers of materials in the same neighborhood and sometimes in the same building. The consequence of dispersing any of these component businesses is not just a matter of 'inconvenience' but would further compromise the time necessary to the creation of Broadway costumes.

Broadway is one of New York's major attractions to the world. The extraordinary expense of producing a Broadway show would seem to be justified since attendance is as great as it ever has been even when tickets prices are daunting. And the financial contributions of this industry to the well-being of the City cannot be underestimated. The creation of a physical production has always challenged producers as well as manufacturers of their scenic and costume elements, both creatively and financially. Methods of production have evolved to fit the times. I have it from designers who were active in the theater in the middle part of the last century (when there were more than two hundred Broadway shows every year) that the methods of producing a Broadway show have altered dramatically. At that time, large costume houses were centrally located and 'full-service' shops. A designer took a show to these businesses and all the elements of manufacture were under one roof. Material suppliers, millinery, shoe-makers, glove makers...all were part of a single business. As the number of Broadway shows dwindled over time, the large houses got smaller and smaller and all have disappeared without exception. It was simply no longer viable from a business perspective to keep so many activities under one roof. And so 'outsourcing' began, perhaps twenty years before the same process was undertaken as a strategy by 'Big business'. Smaller, leaner shops took the place of centrally located costume houses and this entailed geographical dispersal which was chaotic to the exercise of designing a Broadway show. The fitting process took longer as actors were required to factor in travel time. The 'building' process took longer as vendors and suppliers were now separated from their customers. This drifting period lasted nearly twenty years and finally evolved into the present pattern where the location of rehearsing a show and the businesses making the costumes are once more within blocks of one another.

The smooth operation of any business requires that customer and supplier have ready access to each other. The fact that Broadway currently generates hundreds of millions of dollars worth of business cannot be ignored. It would be short-sighted in the extreme were this proximity of industry and suppliers disrupted to put functioning businesses to 'new use' to further homogenize a city whose traditional neighborhoods are constantly being dismantled in the name of 'progress'. This is not a merely sentimental notion. It is important to consider that "Broadway" is big business. And it is equally important to understand the nature of the complex interweaving of interests which are served by this industry. Walking the streets of the garment center gives one a notion of bustling activity and business being conducted all the time, but this alone does not make it readily apparent that the elements which constitute the finished product of a Broadway show are being manufactured here within these few blocks just minutes south of Times Square. The garment center is not some moribund area ready for renewal like the meat packing district or the light-manufacturing lofts and streets of Chelsea or even the Soho or Tribeca of twenty years ago. The visual artists who are the apparent vanguard of any upscaling neighborhood will not be found in the garment center for the simple reason that it is functioning quite well on its own. The artists you will find there are musicians and actors and designers. These are hard-working individuals successfully operating theirs skills in sustaining a huge industry. They employ thousands of people, the international diversity of which is unmatched by any other business that comes readily to mind. While it is important that the city rightfully examine all of its neighborhoods to insure their smooth function and viability, it is also important that they look carefully and understand that what might appear to be a dingy area that needs sprucing up may in reality be the engine that is driving the neon-lit world-class destination just a few blocks away. Let us hope that wisdom will prevail in the city planners choosing to tamper with a smoothly functioning industry and that any 'improvements' they may wish to make in altering the complex relationships of one neighborhood to another are closely examined before changes are imposed which will compromise their future irreversibly.

John Schneeman Owner, Schneeman Studio Garment District

Costume Rental

Mon, 20 Aug 2007

I am a costume designer working in theater and film in New York City.

I utilize many businesses in what has for nearly a century been the garment district and should remain so. I use fabric stores, notion and trim stores, two major costume rental businesses (Helen Uffner Vintage Clothing and Odds), Manhattan Wardrobe Supply, and small businesses that provide specific services such as button making, pleating, embroidery, beading. Having these related businesses in a central area, easily accessible by many subway lines is vastly time saving in a fast moving business. If I and my assistant had to go all over Manhattan and to the other boroughs to do the same work we would lose a lot of time and spend a lot of money on transportation.

Additionally having the costume rental businesses in so central a location makes it possible to have very busy directors and actors come to fittings and consultations, again saving time and money.

Please support the Film/TV and Theater related businesses in the Garment District.

Yours

Claudia Brown Costume Designer

Policy recommendations for the Garment District

Mon, 20 Aug 2007

Dear Sirs

I have been a costume designer based in New York since 1972.

In my thirty-some years of working in New York I have watched the Garment District dry up like the water hole in Lion King. Where are the little crack-in-the-wall trim stores with dusty boxes of fabulous fringe from the 1920’s? Where are the button stores with antique buttons being sold for a song to the designer clever enough to recognize them? Yarn stores? Ribbon stores? Fabric, fabric, fabric? They’re GONE. They can’t afford the rent.

How can New York be proud of its theatrical productions and hopeful of more and more movies being made here and then not support the merchants who make it possible for designers to do an excellent job – efficiently and affordably!

And not only the stores are in danger. How can costume shops afford the rent? Milliners? Shoemakers? Rental houses like Helen Uffner? How can we ask these suppliers to move their establishments to Far Rockaway and Yonkers? Can a designer take a Broadway star away from rehearsal and drag her all over the city for fittings?

My out-of-town friends always joke about New York’s districts – a special area for jewelry, another for lighting, another for restaurant supplies. That, I tell them, is how we turn this huge city into a village where we can work without losing our minds.

Please don’t let the Garment District turn into a boutique area with a Starbucks on every corner. Landmark it – subsidize rents - do something. Let the city be creative so WE can continue to be creative.

Martha McCain

The Associatoin of Theatrical Artists and Craftspeople (ATAC) to Mr. J. Lee Compton, Chair, Community Board 4

Wed, 16 Jan 2008

Mr. J. Lee Compton; Chair
Community Board 4
330 W. 42nd Street, Suite 2618
New York, NY 10036

Dear Mr. Compton,

I am writing as president of The Association of Theatrical Artists and Craftspeople (ATAC), to express our concern regarding the decline of the “Garment District”. We are a group of artisans working in Theatre, Television, display and all areas of the entertainment industry. While we are not directly a part of the Fashion industry, we all use it’s resources to do our work. We use the fabric stores, the sample makers, embroiderers. We use the flower makers and feather merchants.
We are greatly concerned by the erosion and possible extinction of the Garment District. We are loosing resources at a frightening rate, as the costs of rents go sky-rocketing and the designated area of the district is being encroached upon. We are concerned that there seems to be a movement either stated or implied, to do away with the Garment District.
When these businesses leave New York City, it effects our ability to do our work. It takes jobs out of the city, usually out of the state and often, out of the country. Sure, many of these bobs and materials can be out-sourced. But that requires an amount of lead time that fashion and the entertainment industries do not usually have.
The actual size of the area is already quite restricted. Is it really necessary to demolish its existence for the sake of a few hotels that might be better served closer to the Javitts’ Convention Center? And isn’t part of the draw of New York City the Fashion and Entertainment industries?
The lose of this practical and historic area would have a major impact on New York City as a Fashion capital and as a cultural force.
We ask that you reconsider the erosion of the Fashion Center/ Garment district before it is too late.

Yours Respectfully


Arnold S. Levine
555 Eighth Avenue Suite 2009
New York, NY 10018

Designer unite!

Wed, 17 Sep 2008

To Whom It May Concern:

After reading the article in WWD, "A T-Shirt to Save Garment Center," my co-workers and I felt inspired to act! We bought the T-shirts at the Anna Sui store and wore them to Bryant Park during Fashion Week. I am attaching a photo of us, which you are free to use on your website (or anywhere that you may find it useful). We are so grateful to your organization for bringing awareness to this worthy cause. As design professionals, we stand to lose our jobs if the Garment Center is not protected. This is a significant loss to us because fashion is not only our livelihood; it is our passion. We are pictured as follows:



Top Row (Left to Right)- Sherry Black, Natalia Lituta, Beth Zeitlin, Sandra Carrasso.
Bottom Row (Left to Right)- Dorit Cohen, Joy Pilborough (Me), and Olga Gorlenko.

Thank you for your time.

Best Wishes,
Joy Pilborough
Senior Designer
Komar