As regular Consumer Grouch readers know, Howard Clothes is near and dear to my heart because it played a starring role in my dad’s family. While I have written pretty much everything I can already about Howard Clothes in three previous articles, I have since discovered many new photos. When I posted my first Howard Clothes article in September 2015, my dad has just been released from a four-month stay in the hospital and rehab after nearly dying from double pneumonia.
By the time I posted my second article in January 2016, I had read Elaine Winik’s 1996 book entitled Still Looking Forward, which filled in some important details, along with hearing from many relatives of the founders. Elaine was the last surviving daughter of Sam Kappel, who founded this men’s clothing store with Joseph Langerman and Henry Marks. A few weeks later, I had the pleasure of talking to Elaine on the phone, and she graciously sent me a few clippings and photos that I added.
Elaine passed away in September 2017, so she never got a chance to read the final chapter, which I posted in January 2020. My dad did, although he was nearly blind from macular degeneration by then and couldn’t see the images.
In September 2020, I finally decided to start an Instagram page devoted to NYC. Although the original intent was to showcase photos I took of NYC during my RISD years (1976-1980), I realized fairly quickly that I simply didn’t have enough vintage photos of my own to sustain this. Before my Brooklyn-born dad died of COVID-19 in December 2020, I promised him that I would honor his legacy by digitizing and posting vintage photos he took of his beloved NYC. I also looked for great vintage photos of NYC and gravitated to many taken in Times Square.
Howard Clothes had a flagship store on Broadway/Seventh Avenue and 48th Street with large and prominent vertical signs that appeared in many photos. And one of my own photos taken in December 1976 also showed the signage, although I didn’t think to go inside on any of my trips to NYC, back then. This is a photographic homage to Howard Clothes, Times Square, and other NYC businesses lost to history, in chronological order. To see additional vintage photos of NYC, including mine, please visit NYCinthe1970s.
Delivery Trucks Blocking 37th Street by Al Aumuller for the New York World Telegram, 1945 (Source: Library of Congress}
Times Square by Peter Jingeleski May 30, 1953 (Source: Viewing NYC)
Broadway and East 10th Street Looking North by Angelo Rizzuto, September 1952 (Source: Library of Congress)
Times Square by Gottscho-Schleisner, December 29, 1953 (Source: Library of Congress)
Times Square Looking North from 45th Street by Angelo Rizzuto, August 1954 (Source: Library of Congress)
Howard Clothes, Looking North on Seventh Avenue and 48th Street, 1950s (Source: Al Ponte’s Time Machine – New York)
Classic Times Square, 1955 (Source: eBay)
Howard Clothes, Looking South from Seventh Avenue and 49th Street, 1961 (Source: eBay)
Times Square Construction, 1965 (Source: eBay)
Broadway & 50th, Looking South by Bud Pachuta, August 25, 1965 (Source: Facebook)
Born to Win (1971) Screen Capture by Betsy van Die – George Segal and Karen Black drove past Howard Clothes on Broadway in this zany movie
Times Square on a Rainy Day, 1972 (Source: Facebook)
Times Square and Father Duffy Square, December 1976, Copyright Betsy van Die
My Dad took me to Howard Clothes to buy my Bar-Mitzvah suit. It was the first suit with long pants. No knickers. I was a MAN. These memories are CHERISHED.
MEMORIES OF TIMES GONE BY.
Thank you for that recollection of how impactful shopping with your father for the Bar Mitzvah attire remains for you, Bernard.
I, too, recall when folks dressed up to attend services at temple, as well as looking forward to dressing up on special occasions to go out to dinner. (For me, it was being allowed to wear sheer stockings instead of tights and high heels rather than flats, proudly carrying a fancy grownup pocketbook handed down from my grandmother, a white leather, silk-lined clutch with convertible brass carry chain.)