Last November,
Jeremiah had an item on the delightfully old-school
Cup & Saucer Luncheonette on Canal and Eldridge. A rarity in these glitzy times. And still going strong! Good news, of course. Then! A friend
swore to me the other day that the Cup & Saucer had been shuttered. So I headed over to the corner of Canal and Eldridge after work last night to find -- business as usual. Phew. Stupid friend.
By the way, walking north on Eldridge, I noticed this name on the building below:
I wasn't familiar with the Witty Brothers. Didn't realize the hand they played in NYC fashion history. Found this in the Times, from 2006:
Spencer B. Witty, the last of four brothers whose company, Witty Brothers, fashioned and sold elegant men's clothing through a small, prestigious chain of stores in New York, died May 29 at his home in Manhattan. He was 92.
The cause was complications of pancreatic cancer, said his grandson Eric Gould.
In 1939 Mr. Witty — along with his brothers Frederic, Ephraim and Arthur, and a cousin, Irving — took over a company founded by their grandfather David Witty in 1888. It started as one shop on Eldridge Street in Lower Manhattan. By the time it was taken over by the Eagle Clothes company in 1962, there were six stores, one in Brooklyn and five in Manhattan, including two on Fifth Avenue.
"They used luxurious fabrics, cashmere, Scottish tweeds," said Mr. Witty's daughter, Jane Gould, "and this was coming out of the Great Depression." An article in The New York Times about the "Witty boys" in 1952 said it was their insistence on retaining the high quality of their forebears that kept the company afloat through the Depression.
