YOU can learn a lot from coat hangers…wood ones, at least. Newtown Historical Society president, Queen of Queens, Forgotten NY contributor and editor of Juniper Park Civic Association’s Juniper Berry Christina Wilkinson presented this pair of wood coat hangers distributed by Klein & Leonard, #228 Manhattan Avenue in Williamsburg, between Maujer and Grand Streets.
The store featured the Ripley brand of men’s suits and the company’s business phone was ST(agg) 2-2859.
I have wire hangers I probably inherited from the old man, who died in 2003, and he probably had them decades. A check in my closet revealed I have no remaining wood hangers, though I’ve had them in the past. Joan Crawford would be displeased to hear I have only wire hangers now. I pick up a couple each month when my laundry service returns shirts on wire hangers. (Yes, folks, I use a laundry service.) I used to haul my laundry down the street to the laundromat in my Little Red Shopping Cart® but after the onset of the pandemic, I got used to having laundry picked up and returned for approximately $10 more per month.
Klein & Leonard in 1940 tax photo. Like many haberdashers in the era, buildings featured large block lettering and illustrations of suits on the exterior brickwork. There’s a great neon sidewalk sign, and the horizontal etched glass sign above the door is impressive.
#228 Manhattan Avenue in 2022. Then, there was another clothing store, Damsel Den, selling women’s outfits. As is often a modern custom, there’s no exterior signage, either for reasons of cost or perhaps so only the “kool kidz” would be in on the location. In the recent past, as Yelp indicates, a bar called The Drink, art studio The Mudpit, and a hairdresser called Connect the Cutz was in the location recently.
Check out the ForgottenBook, take a look at the gift shop. As always, “comment…as you see fit.” I earn a small payment when you click on any ad on the site.
9/25/25
2 comments
I don’t know if the post-1940 addition of the fire escape was due to more stringent building codes or a change in the property’s use.
I consider myself to blessed because somehow I managed to amass a large number of wooden hangers, & I, my wife, & my daughter use every one of them. They most likely are remnants of my paternal grandparents collection. I just checked the closets in our three bedrooms & they all contain many wooden hangers including one that originated in “The Hotel Commodore Perry/Toledo, OH” This one very old hanger: in 1854 Commodore Perry became famous by assembling his 19th century steam powered fleet , crossing the Pacific Ocean & the dropping anchor off the coast of Japan. At the time Japan was sequestered & not open to American trade. Perry’s modern fleet must have convinced the Emporer to build his own fleet, & I think we all know what that led to in the twetieth century,