Colorful peacocks on a Garment District tower

For such a shadowy, gray part of New York City, the Garment District has lots of lovely architectural ornaments—especially of animals.

One example: these terra cotta peacocks, which sit above the freight elevator entrance at 135 West 36th Street.

They’re part of the Fashion Tower, a 17-story neo-Gothic structure just west of Sixth Avenue designed by Emery Roth in 1922.

Why peacocks, a bird that symbolizes immortality and renewal?

“Peacocks are a traditional symbol of women’s fashion, often appearing as ornament on women’s fashion boutiques,” the terrific site skyscraper.com tells us.

The Fashion Tower has more decorative elements worth a look.

The sixth floor facade features friezes of a woman looking in the mirror and another holding a spindle.

They’re homages to the industry that gave the neighborhood its name.

The foxes of a Fur District building entrance

The early 20th century loft buildings that crowd the streets of the Garment District feature some nifty surprises—like these two magnificent fox statues, which guard the entrance of 242 West 30th Street.

They must be a remnant of the heyday of the Fur District, once a thriving part of the Garment District now populated by a fraction of the manufacturers who once had factories and showrooms in the upper West 20s and lower West 30s.

Newspaper archives show that fur manufacturers did occupy the building. But it’s unclear which company commissioned the statues, stately homages to the animals whose furs brought the company fortune.

This Fur District building has another interesting entrance: two grotesques handling a couple of furry creatures destined to become coats in some rich person’s closet!

The faded underwear ad of 28th Street

“Shirts Underwear Etc” this faded advertisement reads on the back of an old brick building on 28th Street near Fifth Avenue.

Perhaps the building housed an old Garment District wholesaler or manufacturer—long out of business, judging from the condition of the building?

A kosher restaurant feeds the Garment District

Lou G. Siegel (reportedly the G. stood for nothing) was a Romanian immigrant who opened his eponymous kosher restaurant on West 38th Street in 1917.

The timing couldn’t have been better. West 38th Street was the center of the booming Garment District, and Jewish workers and execs flocked for decades to the massive dining room for artery-clogging, traditional Eastern European eats.

This place went all out, “employ[ing] two rabbis full time to supervise the shopping and cooking. So exacting were they that one Rabbi sealed the refrigerator after dinner and the other unsealed the refrigerator in the morning,” stated a New York Times article from June 29, 1996, when Lou G. Siegel’s served its last stuffed derma.

Lou himself died in 1965, after falling down the restaurant stairs. The space is now occupied by Ben’s, a Kosher deli chain that uses a lot less neon on its facade.