The Raffle I Wish I didn’t Win that…

Dee-Dee Diamond
2 min readNov 14, 2023

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Who remembers The First Womens Bank on East 57th Street & Park Avenue in Manhattan?

Well, my husband was in a Garment Center business in late 1970’s.

He was one of the prominent manufactures of the new concept of professional working woman tailored attire.

This was the era of a female mass of lawyers and financial college graduates, that entered the marketplace for the first time…in history. 👩‍🎓👩‍🎓

My husband had been a menswear designer, who spotted the trend, early. He used fine European fabrics and men's wear superior tailoring, for women's suits.

The Bank & his clothing line had lined up, (together), to offer a raffle from his company. It was for a wardrobe, which would be drawn on the NYC news channel, that night.

I invited my friend, Louise to join me in the audience gathered in The First Womens Bank. It was advertised in the newspapers…so a nice crowd showed up.

My husband was first on the air to explain the clothing, then a drumroll… as he stuck his hand in the large vessel to blindly pick the winning raffle.

I almost yelled outright as he pulled out my raffle number. 😱

Holy Toledo!

I had bought a raffle to support the Bank’s charity…obviously not to win.

Everyone turned in my direction…I stuttered “But I’m an employee…I lied, red-faced. 🥵

I returned the only raffle I ever won.

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Dee-Dee Diamond

Born & raised in Brooklyn, 80 years, ago. Interviewed by The Brooklyn Historical Society. I published a funny book called” First Stop Brooklyn” it's on Amazon.