Wonderful...but it begs for being a storytelling multimedia piece; with the owner's voice! Similar to the (regrettably extinct) One In 8 Million features in the NYT.
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If I move to New York today how long would I have to wait before I lose the “tourist” label? Asking for a friend.
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@Elainem It really depends on how much you love the city. Some long time residents never lose the label. My Manhattan born and bred husband is old school: born here is the only true sign of being a true NY'er but he certainly doesn't think of me as a tourist.
A friend sent me this article because he knew I'd melt down in my chair. We owned the Speakeasy Antiques shop on Broadway & 10th Street between Dec. 1969 and Sept. 1988. Looking at Hecht's Heaven of wayward thingies made me want to jump on a plane and jump the chain just to revel in the old glory days. Saving things from the dumpster is a great life's work...from old sewing needles from Germany to human skeletons dangling their bones in our window. What a great time it was. I wonder if Mr. Hecht ever got downtown to our shop. Next time I go to NYC, I'll bring Steve some vintage quirky gifts he might make room for. And maybe in turn, he'll sell me something I can't live without.
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@Rita Brand i remember your shop!!!! Was living on 10th street in the late eighties. Yes, a GREAT time.
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I was luck enough to get to spend several hours at Hecht's in 2010 when I was the Assistant Art Director for the series WHITE COLLAR, and I had to survey the shop (upstairs & downstairs) to create plans for installing a new counter and such to turn the sewing machine repair shop into an antique shop (Season 2, Episode 9, "POINT BLANK"). There were so many wonderful things to see that I was constantly distracted. Making a "map" of that place was one of my most interesting challenges.
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I first learned about Hecht several years ago. I bought a used rabbit pattern hole punch that apparently had been acquired from a factory that closed. It's solid. Standing next to me was a middle-aged machinist who was buying used Merrow Machine parts. If you're familiar with that machine, you know it's complex. Just threading one can be a challenge. But they are sturdy and still coveted.
Mr. Hecht was friendly. On the phone, he sounds like the actor Peter Riegert.
It's a crowded shop. I can understand why he discourages tourists who are there only to gawk.
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He got my 1921 Singer machine running like it was brand new again!! I love this shop!
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One thing you can still find and use are hand sewing tools, and knitting ones too. Often packaged in the original materials. Now that sustainable clothing is becoming of interest to more people these precise finely made little tools add a lot to the methods of repair and restyling we can learn from the past.
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This article is to the NY Times what Steve Hecht's store is to New York City. Something small, refreshing and unusual.
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A working man who shuns the little guy but gushingly sells to the stars is a woeful prospect to behold.
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He doesn't shun the little guy, he shuns tourists. I've been there and he was perfectly friendly.
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@Eric Lamar What in this story gives you the idea that Steve Hecht shuns the little guy? To me, he seems entirely at home in his store, in his relationships with people both obscure and famous and in his lineage.
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@Eric Lamar, I felt that disappointment reading this as well. If I, as a former New Yorker, appeared at his shop door, I would be perceived as a tourist. If I were still living there, I’d Also be perceived as having no business going beyond the chain, at least according to the author’s description. Pity.
As a lifelong collector of anything and everything, I loved this article for so many reasons, but chiefly because my father and his company — Unity Machine & Tool Corporation — made parts for both Singer and Brother sewing and knitting machines. I grew up in that factory atmosphere with an appreciation for industrial objects, especially those related to the schmata business. My mother sewed all her own clothing for most of her life. Both my parents are deceased, and we’re from Philadelphia, but during the 1950s through the 1980s, my mother and father came to Manhattan often, and I wonder if my parents knew the Hechts. I moved to the City in 1981. I haven’t sewn in 50 years, and I’ve never stopped in this repair shop, but now I’ll have to poke my head in, if for nothing else than to see a vintage bobbin or presser foot, and then have a good cry.
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Guys wielding the racks of clothing are (were, anyway) known as shleppers, not pushers.
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@inframan Yeah, pushers—if memory serves me—are something entirely different!
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Glad to know there are still places you can go where you can get that desperately needed vial of “glove cleaner” (fans of the original “Twilight Zone” will get the reference).
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God Bless him. He's keeping history real!
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Buddha Bless he prefers
Now that tourist chain is going to earn its keep!
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Meyer Berger would be smiling in his grave. (For non-geezers, there was a time when, even after his death, the Times' printers kept his name set in type, in homage to him.) So would Joe Mitchell, at the New Yorker.
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ol' Hecht, gettin by in the "Gram Age". good for you
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Once again the New York Times publishes a story about a place unique to New York that very few people know about, basically ruining it. If part of the charm of a place is that it isn’t overrun with tourists and onlookers, that will no longer be the case after the story is printed.
Why do you do this?!
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Probably to allow out of town former New Yorkers to revel in people places that make NYC the greatest city in the world. Trump’s changing his residency to Florida just made it even greater.
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How sad, this rather hefty man rejects heavyset women's dress forms but collects porn. Enough said.
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@fg ... Don't be so sensitive and judgmental.
He explained that he already had 3-4 other size 20 dress forms. So how many can one person use or need? People have to stop looking for things to attack people about -- there's just too much of that these days.
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@fg
I raised my eyebrows briefly upon reading his remark, but when it was explained that he already has three or four size 20 forms I could understand the joke.
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@fg He actually noted that he already had a handful of them!
What a wonder place! Thanks NYT.
FYI, many more photos available here: http://sideways.nyc/2014/01/hecht-sewing-machine-motor/
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i have a little piece of hecht in my sewing room :)
i moved to connecticut from the city many years ago to raise my daughter, but when i had a studio in the garment center, hecht was my repair shop. i have one old and obsolete machine that takes a certain needle, and hecht had it - it must have been steve's dad who sold it to me in the original little green singer box, a beautiful thing at least 50 years old. he told me at least three times to NOT throw away the box, and i never have and never would - i treasure the same things.
how i smiled when i read this article - thank you nyt!!! i smile whenever i think of hecht - their sticker is still on my juki, 15 years after their last repair call. i've often thought of looking them up when i'm in the garment center, but was so afraid i would find a starbucks in their place. this made my day. i'm going to bring them a job on my next trip in. thank you so much again :)
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As a hobby I used to collect oak furniture. I would approach supers on the west side and sometimes in Harlem. Harlem was a gem. Most stuff was stored in basements. They would give it away. Sometimes paintings. I got the “Rubinstein” collection of mostly prints and paintings from a building on CPW,20 gate leg tables for $10 a piece. Finally opened a store on City Island called the Crooked Fence. Had a good time . There was some much stuff. Depression glass,a whole store full. Take it we were throwing it out. Had another job this was my part time fun.
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In the late 40's & early '50's my cousin and I used to take the sewing machines from my grandfather's cap factory to Hecht's.
They had some curiosity's in the store then. glad to see they are still in business.
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Such a wonderful slice of New York
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I discovered the shop looking for an antique pocket micrometer. He did not have one but allowed me to spend a good hour looking over the store. The whole time we talked. Contrary to the article, he never gave me the sense he wouldn't sell me whatever was in his shop. I finally purchased something in consolation of my inability to find exactly what I wanted. He is an interesting man and if you are too, Hecht is a wonderful shop for the curious.
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Hecht is great. I work across the street and háve acquired some special gifts there. The last item I convinced Steve to sell me was a resin cast paper weight advertising a machine shop into which a dandelion seed pod had; mistakenly he believed, been cast. It is magic.
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I wonder who brought in the watering can from Baltimore setting next to the sink.
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@Karen Raschke Good eye, noticing the Bertha's Mussels decal on the watering can!
The history that will be lost with Mr. Hecht. Des anyone else know even a little about what is in his shop?
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Thank you NYTimes. Your wonderful articles help me every day fight my sadness at missing NYC. Just when I think the newspaper cannot possibly come up with other points of light in a piece about NY, you do. I wish I had the words to describe what all these wonderful articles mean to me. I love NY and miss it so much, I will come to NYC to live for 6 months and be here during the winter months. I am selling my house and getting an apartment here for this reason and will rent an apartment in NYC too. I love the NYTimes in the meantime for keeping me inside the NY thought box. Thank you again. I believe I went to school with Steve Hecht and when I read his age, I was sure of it. Only in NY, the most diverse city in the world do you find these people that are treasures.
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@This just in this all goes double for me :)))
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@This just in
Currently living in Nevada where the quality of life is terrific and there is no dirt, no grime, no potholes, no crowds, no traffic and no mean people. I live in a real community of families and working people and retired people too. It is unbelievable how nice people are here. They really mean it when they ask you how you are or say good morning when on our walks. Two neighbors came over with baked goods and introduced themselves. The parks are incredible and we have three pools to choose from during the hottest summer months for 35. for the whole season. They help you to your car with your groceries and will engage in conversation easily. The reason I am coming home and maybe for good is the water. You cannot drink the water out of the tap and must drink bottled water. I love NYC tap water. Also, the medical care is about 10 years behind NY and there are fewer doctors too. The sidewalks are clean here, the mountains gorgeous. But I also miss the ocean and the people I left behind. The weather here is great. Able to walk everyday and BBQ as it hits 77 today. I will give up this great life and come back to the city I love.
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@This just in
I suggest you spend some extended time in NYC before you leave Nevada permanently. As Thomas Wolfe wrote, "You can't go home anymore." You could easily find that things in NYC have changed or are different than you remember them. As for doctors, just getting back and forth to them and getting appts. could wear you out. Your quality of life could be taking a big turn for the worse if you move back to the East
Coast. I lived in the Midwest for years before returning east. You go from supermarket employees loading your car and refusing a tip to...nothing like that. Everything takes longer and requires more effort in the overcrowded east than it does in less populated areas. People frequently lack the energy to be polite, and it's a shock to the system when you're used to something else.
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Like some commenters below, i also stumbled upon this wonderful gem of a place a couple of years ago and experienced poor mr Hecht's weary explanation that he was not running a museum but a sewing machine repair business. Poor guy, everyday several people stumble into his store and widen their eyes, while he rolls his.
Goodness knows what he's in for now that this appreciative piece has appeared.
But so many of my family participated in the NYC dress business, as Bronx based factory owners, cutters, foreladies, pressers, sewing machine operators, from the 1920's to early 1970's and its a pleasure that Mr Hecht has made a well deserved place for so many ghosts of that incredibly " new york-new york" way of working and living.
Thank you.
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I spent plenty of time with Mr. Hecht during my years as a shopper for City Ballet and as a costumer with other companies in NYC. Such a pleasant reminder on a Friday afternoon 3000 miles away that such magical holes-in-the-wall still exist in the world, filled with treasures from the past.
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These images are a wonderful example of how to take photographs of things.A master class. Outstanding and eye catching. Many thanks.
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This is a fun piece. Thanks for the article and pictures.
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What a fantastic family story - I hope it will continue for many more years. Better than any time capsule!
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This is why I read the Times, sometimes I forget amidst the hubbub of politics and bitterness of the 21st century, that there is still some anarchy to treasure in our present moment.
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Beautiful story! Beautiful shop! xxxooo
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. . . so much for secrets
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I can’t get over how much you look like your grandfather.
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I am so glad to hear that Mr. Hecht was repairing an early Elna. I own three Elna Grasshoppers, not to mention two singer featherweights, two singer 185s and a 99 with an original sewing table. Friends ask me what I do with them. I use them all, and they are beautiful machines to look at and take apart. My friend, a professor of mechanical engineering has many more of these vintage machines than I do. We call it a sickness. But it is a sickness that brings so much pleasure. God bless Mr. Hecht!
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Several years back Steve Hecht and the store were featured in a PBS documentary, Dressing America.
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After everyone reads this I think he's gonna need a bigger chain.
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I think this is pretty cool. In North Carolina, we have a lot of antique stores but nobody really pays them any attention. People expect that a state like NC would actually like things like that but we do not. I guess it has nothing do with farming and we are not the highest tourist state so is probably why. However, I would not mind going to this place and paying this man just to look at this stuff just like a museum. I will be tempted to take pictures for my experience but I am good at respecting people wishes. One day when I visit New York, hopefully I remember this place.
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I wish I'd known about Hecht's in 1999. I was working at 38th and Broadway for an internet company, and we took over space from a garment company that just abandoned their showroom overnight. Cigars in the ashtrays, dying plants, fixtures, mannequins, and lots of other sundry stuff. I rescued the plants, but the rest of it got tossed as we renovated. Who knows what was lost in there.
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Many of the padlocks came from old garment factories.
Yes, I am certain of it. Used, possibly, to lock the garment workers inside.
Like with the Triangle Waistcoat Company fire.
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@Simple Truth
Yes it's morbid, but not false. Mostly unknown detail of the garment trade is the sub-contractor operating under the radar. Some do keep workers locked in, suddenly close without notice or paying, and re-open down the street with a new name. More factories have burned than the Triangle with people locked inside but these days they're in Bangladesh and other countries overseas.
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@Simple Truth
I had the very same thought when I read about those padlocks. Not weird or morbid, just sadly true.
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What a Paradise of lovers of junque and junk. Alas to be in Arizona when Mr. Hecht's non-shop is in New York! I would go in and might never come out again.
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@Ward Martin
I too am in Arizona and my first though on simply looking at the photos was ,"I could live here!"
thanks for the article Ms Correal.
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I stumbled into Hecht's about 10 years ago and found Steve charmingly brusque. He was kind enough to sell me a small item (I won't disclose what it is in fear that the others will soon be gone) which I gave to my son-in-law. I, too, am an inveterate collector. Fortunately (I think), my wife holds the impulse in check. A return visit is long past due.
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