“What I Would Have Done Differently”
…if I could have peeked into the now! 🤨
I would not have invested my career and nest egg into manufacturing ladies' “Schmattes” in New York’s Garment Center.
Little did I suspect that an old important industry that was built on generations of immigrants that prospered themselves, then employed the next boatloads of immigrants, would disappear. 😮
Once their children grew the businesses for generations of American-born offspring, and for so many adjacent firms… that depended on the garment industry. Textiles, suppliers, seamstresses, knitters, salesmen, buyers, machinery makers, truckers, retail stores and restaurants, etc.
The wealth it created paid for many tuitions from Yale, Harvard, Columbia, Wharton. Doctors, lawyers, financers, leaders that sprang from immigrant garment center workers.
My business, along with all my rivals, our industry & every exciting bustling aspect of its had glamour, “Gone with the Wind” … to Asia.
Global sourcing killed this once wealth producing, important New York/USA industry… (along with many of our other American industries).
The colorful successful Garment Center as America knew it…is history.
Today it is a neighborhood of converted showrooms & lofts for condos… for yuppies.
Who woulda dreamt it! 😮🙄
