Cleveland knits, now in Brooklyn

Submitted by Mary Ann on Wed, 07/11/2007 - 10:04.

Ran across this story about Ohio Knitting Mills and thought it might be of interest. Sure would love to touch/view/wear these Cleveland classics.  Disappointing that Brooklyn is the store location...could they be persuaded to open a branch here? Called the local contact number out of curiousity to dig around but haven’t connected yet.

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Cleveland Retro the fashion in NYC

Thanks Mary Ann.  Some of our folks recognize our assets and make good on them.    It sounds like Steve Tartar is related to the Sapirstein's of American Greetings.  I have heard the story about Jacob Sapirstein's cart business, which grew to become American Greetings.   I would like to know why Steve left Cleveland.  See Mary Ann's link to PapMag for the story excerpted below:

Two years ago, on a hunt for scrap metal and an I-beam, sculptor Steven Tatar walked around the corner from his studio to the recently closed Ohio Knitting Mills factory in Cleveland's industrial corridor. What happened next -- a chance meeting with the factory-owner's son, the discovery of thousands of unworn pieces of clothing -- led to the October opening of Boerum Hill's Ohio Knitting Mills store.

From 1927 to 2003 the original Ohio Knitting Mills factory manufactured garments for clients such as Pendleton, Jatzen, Sears and Roebuck & Co., Montgomery Ward and lesser known lines like Queen's Way to Fashion and Kerrybrooke. At its peak, the factory employed 700 union workers and took up an entire city block. Over the years, one or two copies of each garment made were archived along with cancelled but already completed orders, otherwise known as "dead stock." The owner's son, Gary Rand, gave Tatar access to the sealed vault of thousands and thousands of samples and Tatar soon realized he had discovered a perfectly preserved vestige of American craftsmanship.

Still here?

    Interestingly, I believe Steven Tartar is still in Cleveland Heights...of course, Brooklyn is the hot bed of everything cool these days (even librarians) so certainly a savvy business decision (not to mention a positive branding opportunity for our lovely heartland city).