Now There's Irony

A year or so ago, Brooks Brothers opened their hip version of themselves, The Flatiron Shop, in a corner space at Broadway and 20th Street. I didn't get a good look at it until accidentally passing by the place yesterday, so I didn't realize that it had taken up residence in the old Lord & Taylor building.

The structure, the third built and occupied by Lord & Taylor, was erected in 1870. The department store abandoned it to newer digs uptown in 1915. It used to occupy much of the block, but now only a sliver of the original edifice remains, and it is that sliver that Brooks Brothers now calls home. Brooks Brothers was, or course, one of Lord & Taylor's main rivals throughout the 19th century and beyond. The store was located at Broadway and Bond when Lord & Taylor was at this address, and later moved to 23rd Street. Brooks decamped for midtown the same year L&T did. Wrote the New York Times in 1915: "When Lord & Taylor decided to go to Fifth Avenue and 38th Street it was rumored Brooks Brothers would soon joint the uptown movement."

Me and Chains

To put it simply, chains bug me. This should not be news to anyone who reads this site. Chains erode communities and neutralize the flavor of life. They are diluting the character of this City through homogenization and arid design.

However, my attitude toward chains is not wholly monochromatic. The other day I noticed that a Brooks Brothers outlet was in the process of being installed at the southeast corner of Broadway and 65th Street, a space that had always been occupied by one bank or another. This is did not really dismay me.

I will explain. Brooks Brothers is, to my mind, a local chain. I know, I know. It's owned by some international conglomerate (an Italian billionaire, actually), and has nothing really to do with New York anymore. But its roots in Gotham are deep. It was founded here in 1818 and is the oldest men's clothier in the United States. It has always been in New York, at one location or another, moving northward in Manhattan as fashions dictated. The flagship Madison Avenue store can still give your an "Old New York" thrill. It introduced Oxford, button-down shirts to the people. It was the first U.S. store to carry ready-made suits, Shetland sweaters, Harris tweed, seersucker suits and Madras. When some people look at Brook Brothers they see a conservative-cum-boring clothing giant. I see a rather romantic remnant of New York's mercantile past.

I am similarly not upset when Fairway opens a new store, or Tiffany, or P.J. Clarke's or even the horrid Modell's. These are New York businesses, born and bred, and a have a right to a stake in the City's fortunes. (I draw the line at hometown boy Duane Reade, which is far too land-hungry for my tastes.) What offends me are the chains that bear no connection to the city and yet feel they have the right to run roughshod over our streets.

J. Press on the Move

J. Press, the 105-year-old men's clothier on E. 44th Street in Midtown is moving. A sign in the window advertised a "moving sale." Sales clerk Ed said the store would shutter the first week of April and move to new digs on Madison Avenue and 47th Street. "More foot traffic," he said was the reason for the shirt. J. Press, which was born in New Haven on the Yale campus, has been in its current location on E. 44th between Fifth and Madison for 20 years. Before that it was across the street.

The move is probably a good idea. To my mind, J. Press has always been a little overshadowed by its mighty neighbor, Brooks Brothers. That—and the name-recognition-erosion it must have suffered in the '80s and '90s when J. Crew and J. Peterman rose to prominence—must have cut into profits.

A good amount of preppy, Ivy League wear looked to be on sale. For those who like such stuff, come a-running!