in our tour of Garment District, I got a lot of new information about the district from Mike. I visit the Garment district constantly but I never noticed what’s there until I went on this tour. Also, the name started making sense now.
We started off at 7th avenue and 39th street between the Garment District Information Kiosk and the bronze statue of the garment worker that is shown in the picture. The statue gives a sense of fashion industry in this district, which is what this district is all about.
On the same sidewalk where the bronze statue and the information desk has metalic panel on the floor along the sidewalk as shown in the picture. Each one of them has information about one of the most famous designers’ history, and it starts with this panel.
There are many panels along the sidewalk of many famous designers like Ralf Lauren, and Calvin Klein. This panel talks about Calvin Klein as a designer and how he was famous for the best jeans, especially in the 70’s.
The garment district has many huge, tall buildings that has many units. Most of it are fashion offices, so it’s business more than residency. However, Mike had told us that the Garment District has the lowest renting price in New York City.
Mike took us to a theatre building in Broadway. This building is know for having a wall that has pictures that shows the history of the Garment district. It has pictures of people who immigrated to NYC and how men and women worked that made it lead to fashion.
In this picture, Mike is pointing to a picture that shows what this building was in the past, a theatre. But in the 20th century, they tore it down to make it a fashion business building. As Mike pointed, this building has many show rooms that we didn’t have that chance to visit. However, they kept many of the theatres in NYC, and they’s in an area called the Theatre District.
Along broadwy in the Garment District, there are many interesting, handmade artworks. Thiis is a series of work, i’m not sure by who, but they caught my attention because they’re big in size and they give a sense of art in the district. I also liked the idea of having art in place where the fashion is taking over, when there are a lot of arguments wheather fashion is art or it has nothing to do with it.
Mike said that he had worked in this building. This building had offices of baby fashion design, and other baby needs. This was successful until the rent went crazily high, then Urban Outfitters rented a part of the first floor and all the second floor for 1 million dollars per month, and they still are doing this.
Macy’s, one of the largest shopping stores, is located also in the Garment District few blocks down at 34th street. The store is huge it takes a whole block. Macy’s has a very simple, yet remarkable logo, which is the red start that represents the time Mr.Macy’s found Macy’s after his whaling shipping.
We ended the tour at Herald Square, right in front of macy’s where there’s many food karts, people hanging around, and so much noise. In the middle of Herald Square there’s this ancient clock that has figures that looks like people banging the big bell. The idea of this clock is that it rings a bell every hour, however, the figures doesn’t move you just hear the sounds. Mike also said that it might not be working in the current time.