Kind of like the trucker-hat fixation among urban hipsters a few years ago, kid gloves were a style must for men in the 1860s, according to a neat little anecdote in Herbert Asbury’s All Around the Town. And they continued to be trendy for decades. This 1890s ad from the Brooklyn Daily Eagle has them on sale for $2.
Abraham and Straus has been dead since 1995, but from the 1880s throughout the 20th century it was the most opulent department store in Brooklyn, headquartered in a gorgeous five-story building on Fulton Street. I guess that Manhattan Mall idea really bled them dry. RIP, A & S.
Ephemeral New York 