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....February 19, 2:10 PM |
| The End Of An Era: Scalamandre Set To Leave Queens
By Azi Paybarah A presidential piece of Queens’ economy announced this week that it’s moving out of New York City in search of a cheaper way to expand, ending an era in Queens manufacturing.
Scalamandre, a luxury textile manufacturer in Long Island City that has provided artistic pieces for every United States president for the past 75 years, announced this week that it is moving from Queens to South Carolina because of a need to expand. Although the exact moving date is not finalized, the company plans to leave in May or June. Sitting on a table covered in yards of unfurled satin this week, Scalamandre Co-President Robert Bitter told the Tribune that economic pressures from overseas forced the company to expand, something that it couldn’t afford to do in New York City. Queens business leaders said they were saddened by the loss of such a “world class company,” and said the loss of the factory’s nearly 100 jobs would impact the surrounding area. Although Bitter was sorry to go, he said the move was necessary financially. But he did have an optimistic attitude. “[Business] typically slows around the end of a four year term and picks up afterwards,” he said. He wouldn’t declare support for any candidate in the upcoming presidential elections, although he did say, “Democrats order a considerable amount more” than Republicans. “Think about it, Republican’s tend to be more frugal.” Second To None Scalamandre’s red, four story brick building at 37-24 24th St. in Long Island City may look modest, but it has been the birthplace of hundreds of high class artistic textiles such as satins, silks, linens, and handmade silk-screen wallpaper designs. The pieces, which go for an average of $2,000 apiece, have covered the walls of the White House, Gracie Mansion and countless museums. Bitter said that Scalamandre is similar to the Steinway piano factory in Astoria in that its clients are second to none. The company’s work has been respected since 1929, when Scalamandre churned out a brocatelle – a textile whose design is woven into the fabric – for William Randolph Hurst. Jacqueline Kennedy used Scalamandre to recreate 19th century silk when she redecorated the White House. When Monticello needed a recreation of Thomas Jefferson’s curtains, he called Scalamandre. But just how do these luxury textiles get made? Kyle Homan, a factory worker who helps create the artistic masterpieces, explained the complicated process to the Tribune during a factory tour this week. Homan, wearing a pair of dungarees and a green plaid shirt, pointed to a nearly five-foot high wheel spinning horizontally on the factory floor, drawing in a web of thread from hundreds of spools, and said, “If you make a mistake here, there’s no going back.” At this point, on the company’s third floor, the silk has already been cleaned, boiled, dyed and dried. Other companies outsource that work, meaning Scalamandre products are made from scratch. “There’s no way of handling the yard afterwards,” said Homan, who joined Scalamandre 13 years ago. “In dying, you make readjustments, in winding, rewind it,” he said. Once fabric is woven together into these giant panels, “there’s no way of undoing what you’ve done.” Once a panel is made, the fabric is placed on a loom. That essential tool has undergone three major changes in the last 100 years, dramatically altering the landscape of textile manufacturing. A shuttle loom is manually operated, and labor intensive. A mechanical loom reads directions from punch cards, similar to those used with early computers. Lastly, there are electronic looms, which read patterns from floppy discs, and operate exponentially faster than their mechanical counterparts. Although mechanical and electronic looms can sew hundreds of yards simultaneously, a single broken thread can halt production. If undetected, a broken pattern is disastrously woven into the material, ruining thousands of yards of fabric, and costing countless amounts of dollars in damage. Bumpy Economic Road Even for the company known as the Rolls Royce of textiles, the maker of arguably the world’s finest textiles, the road used to be smoother. After announcing this week that it had to move to South Carolina, it also announced that 50 of its 90 Long Island City factory employees would have to be laid off. Bitter explained that companies using cheaper labor overseas forced the company to expand in order to compete. The expansion was too expensive at its current location, Bitter said. |
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