Welcome to my wooden hanger collection
Just when I thought I'd run out of things to collect I peeked in my closet
There are two kinds of people in this world. I already know what you’re thinking: “Yeah, jerks like you who divide people into two groups and those that don’t.” I hear you. I plead guilty. Moving on, the sub-group I’m referring to is people who collect vs. those who don’t.
Mark my words: Some day science will stumble across a curatorial gene that determines whether you’re a passionate accumulator of stuff. I am, and I’m fortunate that I live in a multigenerational home that presents almost ceaseless opportunities to hunt and gather political campaign buttons, porcelain figurines, silver spoons, old coins, books, stamps, etc.
But then what? There are artifacts that have intrinsic value that one might care to hoard or sell: gold coins, paintings by famous artists, rare books, vintage comics. We own few, if any, examples of those. I’m referring to things of little monetary value, or rather objects whose value derives almost exclusively from the simple atavistic pleasure you experience from assembling them into a group.
True hoarders, I mean collectors, know what I’m talking about. It hardly matters what you collect. It’s all about the journey. It’s about imbuing humble, overlooked objects with beauty and meaning.
And that, unfortunately, refers to much of what we own. A respectable New York City auction house recently invited clients to discover the value of their Asian works of art and perhaps consign them for sale. We’ve got lots of the stuff — antique lacquered Japanese Buddhas, ivory snuff bottles, Chinese export porcelain, my late mother’s extensive rose quartz collection.
I submitted a bunch of photos to the auction house after consulting with my family about whether we should sell them or not. Their unsentimental verdict was unanimous: Get rid of the stuff. It’s not doing anybody any good gathering dust in the basement.
When I didn’t hear back from the auction house — I should have realized that their unresponsiveness constituted their appraisal — I contacted them.
“I’m afraid that most of what you have shared has fallen out of favor in the market,” their expert over-politely replied via email. “Most Japanese works of art are slumping and Chinese rose quartz doesn’t appeal to those driving that particular market. I wish I had better news.”
But even I am forced to admit that my latest collecting bug has tiptoed up to and peeked over the precipice of the absurd. It’s wooden hangers. Not any wooden hangers, mind you, but sturdy, branded antique hotel and store hangers.
The reason they excite me is not because they’re better for your clothes, even though they are. They’re more durable and eco-friendly. Clothes hang from them more gracefully; you’re less likely to don a jacket you haven’t worn in ages to find unsightly carbuncles in the shoulders because they’ve been loitering on flimsy wire hangers.
They’re also more visually appealing, though who really cares unless you’re Martha Stewart or some influencer whose closets always need to look good. Also, wooden hangers aren’t a collectable that I’ve pursued. They found me. Our closets are loaded with them.
The internet and social media might be bringing the planet to ruin but they also have occasionally redeeming value: with just a few keystrokes you can discover the provenance of the most esoteric objects and also probably find them for sale at inflated prices. And that includes hangers.
I’m thinking of one wooden hanger in particular whose background I knew nothing about until I surfed the web. Turns out that that my green flannel L.L. Bean shirt was hanging from an authentic piece of Americana.
The hanger bore the mark of Abe Stark, a Brooklyn tailor — but not any Brooklyn tailor. Stark, it turns out, was a businessman and a politician who built his reputation in the garment business. He became famous when, as an advertising gimmick, he placed a sign on the scoreboard at Ebbets Field that said “Hit sign, win suit. Abe Stark. 1514 Pitkin Avenue. Brooklyn’s Leading Clothier.”
Few ballplayers won a free suit.
Some of our hangers predate Abe Stark by decades. For example, there’s someone & Brody (the first name in the partnership has faded with time.) They were clothiers and tailors that an online 1907 New York City business directory finds at 88 Canal St. Might an ancestor have once shopped there?
Simon Ackerman, whose hanger is represented in my collection, was also apparently a big deal. According to The New York Times, his six stores were slated for liquidation in 1964, six years after his death. But the business dated back to 1914, the era from which my hanger was probably manufactured based on its weathered condition.
Hotel hangers constitute an entire subgenre of hanger collecting. We have many heralding from the Fifth Avenue Hotel in Greenwich Village where my grandparents lived for many years and where my father grew up. For the record, the hangers weren’t stolen. My grandparents insisted that they bought them at some hotel going-out-of-business sale, along with heavy woolen Fifth Avenue Hotel blankets.
Theft, however, was clearly behind some of our other hotel hanger acquisitions. Knowing my father, it’s highly unlikely that he would have purchased souvenirs that he could get for free. Hence a handsome wooden hanger from London’s Connaught Hotel and another from Lisbon’s Ritz. My parents stayed at the Ritz in the summer of 1952, shortly after they got married.
I’m confident that my father was the culprit because my mother didn’t have a greedy bone in her body and probably would have forbid him from filching the hanger had she known. Then again, I would have said the same thing about my wife until I discovered a hanger from L.A.’s storied Chateau Marmont, where John Belushi died of a drug overdose in 1982.
I’ve never been there in my life, but Debbie was in the early 1980s while working in publicity for a publishing house and meeting with West Coast TV producers on behalf of her authors. To the best of my knowledge, she spent a quiet night there and committed no crime more serious than absconding with one hanger.
By the time the market for Chinese rose quartz comes around again my grandchildren will probably be grandparents
Simply fabulous! I'm saving this one!
My heart was racing as you gave an archeological rundown of the names on the hangers. I'd never sell them. Who would have thought that wooden hangers could be the legacy left behind?
"I’m afraid that most of what you have shared has fallen out of favor in the market,” their expert over-politely replied via email. “Most Japanese works of art are slumping and Chinese rose quartz doesn’t appeal to those driving that particular market. I wish I had better news."
That's hilarious!!!