Image courtesy of garmentdistrict.nyc
New York City’s Garment District has been an epicenter of the fashion industry since 1919. The district, which is located between Fifth and Ninth Avenues between 34th and 42nd Streets, wasn’t always the claim to fashion fame as we have come to embrace. Before 1919, The Garment District was known as the Tenderloin and the Devil’s Arcade.
It was a cesspool of squalor and had the highest concentration of sex workers the nation had seen at the time. Many crimes went on in the neighborhood, including bootlegging and racketeering. The question loomed of who or what could turn the area from a mecca of the sex trade and other sordid activities into something of a non-illicit boom for the city.
Photo by Walter Sanders/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images)
The answer to that question was the Garment District. Hundreds of thousands of garment worker immigrants were essentially quarantined into the area as New York’s wealthy elite looked for ways to clean up the Tenderloin and get immigrants away from Fifth Avenue. The manufacturing zone proposed became known as the Garment District, and the first new buildings, known as the Co-Operative Garment Center buildings, were built in 1920 and 494 and 500 Seventh Avenue, wrapping around two existing hotels, the Hotel Havare and the Hotel York.
For the decades proceeding, the Garment District would be a source of some of the city’s greatest manufacturing jobs, the home of many designer studios and showrooms, and a hub of American fashion from conception to the final product. The Garment District was the symbol of arguably all that was American fashion. Even legends, such as Calvin Klein, Donna Karan, and Ralph Lauren, would call the Garment District home for their businesses at one time.
Although many fashion brands still retain showrooms and offices there, including Prabal Gurung, Jason Wu, and Wiederhoeft, the Garment District is no longer the textile hub it once was. Over the past several decades, the Garment District’s position as a manufacturing hub has been shrinking.
The issue isn’t a cut-and-dry one and is multifaceted, with global economic shifts, high costs, and zoning changes affecting the slow loss of the Garment District. The Garment District has unfortunately seen a decline in jobs and businesses for reasons including manufacturing moving overseas and rising rents in the neighborhood.
Image courtesy of humanb.com
The rise of low-cost manufacturing in other countries led to the outsourcing of garment production, which caused the number of domestic manufacturing jobs in the U.S. to shrink. Manhattan rents are also at record prices, making it difficult for manufacturers even to open shop or keep shops open in the Garment District.
In the 21st century, one of the culprits of the decline of the Garment District is fast fashion. The demand for locally produced more quality fashion has waned. This isn’t because people no longer have an interest in good clothes or dressing well, but, rather, because consumers have been so conditioned to shop fast-fashion, the idea of spending more on clothes for long-term use is foreign to many of them.
One of the biggest issues facing the Garment District today is zoning changes and relocation. In 2017, New York’s Economic Development Corporation attempted to relocate the Garment District from Midtown Manhattan to Sunset Park in Brooklyn, a move that was considered a threat to fashion manufacturing in the United States. The removal of zoning laws that protected the Garment District for decades left manufacturers with the option to move to a 200,000-square-foot industrial space with lower rent and longer leases. Thirteen factories at the time made the decision not to move to the Sunset Park location.
Image courtesy of cashmertte.com
Despite the slow decline of the number of manufacturers and fashion companies in the Garment District over the decades, there are still many fashion companies based there, and the Garment District is still home to many independent textile stores and even the famous Mood Fabric store featured on “Project Runway.” The Garment District is also up the street from the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT), the prestigious fashion school that has produced legendary fashion designers, including Daniel Roseberry of Schiaparelli, Michael Kors, and Ralph Rucci.
Now, the biggest threat to what’s left of the Garment District is a Midtown South Mixed-Use (MSMX) plan, an NYC rezoning initiative covering 42 blocks from West 23rd to 40th Streets, between Fifth and Eighth Avenues. The proposal aims to transform the area into a 24/7 mixed-use neighborhood by adding about 9700 new housing units, including up to 2900 permanently affordable homes.
While adding more housing units, especially affordable ones, sounds amazing in theory, and would greatly help with rising housing costs in New York City, without critical changes to the proposal it could force many manufacturers out of the Garment District by the whim of real estate developers.
The New York Fashion Workforce Development Coalition (NYFWDC), along with organizations, such as the Council of Fashion Designers of America, have signed a petition urging New York City to put guardrails in place to serve the MSMX plan, as well as preserve manufacturing jobs and hubs in the area. A few things the NYFWDC has proposed are prioritizing adaptive reuse over demolition, where buildings would be converted rather than torn down. Many of the District’s lofts were built for manufacturing and can’t be recreated under current building codes. NYFWDC has also called on the city to reinvest in initiatives, like CFDA’s Fashion Manufacturing Initiative, Custom Collaborative, and other workforce development programs that train and retain local talent.
New York City also has $25 million in unallocated Business Improvement District funds that were set aside for the Garment District. NYFWDC has also called on the city to relaunch the building acquisition and Industrial Development Agency programs to secure new buildings dedicated to garment manufacturing
Image courtesy of vogue.com
Other aspects of the proposal include adopting limits to prevent speculative development, offering tax relief for fashion-related businesses, and establishing a displacement relief to support businesses affected by redevelopment with grants and relocation assistance.
Garment District workers and notable members of the fashion industry, including CFDA president Steven Kolb, held an in-person rally on June 18 to speak out against the MSMX plan. The movement against the plan is growing, and while the Garment District may never return to its peak glory days, hopefully, it will still have a home in Midtown Manhattan.
—Kristopher Fraser
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