Hats Off!

New York City should have one of every kind of business, no matter how archaic or obscure. That's why we're here. If we don't have room for a glover, blacksmith, steamfitter, cobbler, hooper, chimney sweep and Balkan restaurant, what good are we?

And so it's good news that the fading world of hatters now has another shop in its ranks. And not only a shop, but the best in the biz, Worth & Worth—an enterprise once though dead as a doornail when in 2000, after 80 years, it put up the shutters on its Madison and 43rd Street space, unable to meet a $14,000 rent hike. It was gone for a year and a half when Orlando Palacios, a super-suave latino California native who had been designing its hat line, decided to bring it back to life, working out of a small showroom on 55th and 6th. But you had to be a detective to find the place! They didn't advertise, and if you weren't on the mailing list or knew a hat man in the know (good luck these days!), you thought the store was still extinct.

That will all change now. Worth & Worth is finally venturing out into the world of the living again. It will open up a 57th Street storefront on Nov. 2, it's stenciled, fourth-floor window easily spied from the sidewalk. Now all can access its beautiful line of handmade panamas, fedoras, fur hats, trilbys, hamburgs, derbys and wool and linen caps.

So go and buy a hat and keep the place in business! Make the city more attractive. Your haircut isn't as impressive as you think—put a hat on it. Worth & Worth's hats are better made than your head will ever be.