Since 1917 Feigenbaum Cleaners

“The unpredictable success of an unplanned walk.” e have been on this block in one house or another since 1917.” Those were the words of Todd Feigenbaum, the third generation owner of Feigenbaum Cleaners, located at 89 ½ Bay Street in Glens Falls. Todd is the President of Feigenbaum Cleaners and the grandson of Herman & Jennie Feigenbaum, the founders of Feigenbaum Cleaners. Their business started out in their family home and was the first dry cleaner north of Albany.

by Kate Haggerty Glens Falls TODAY

In 1917, The Feigenbaums were not expecting to make Glens Falls their home. After living in the Lower East Side of Manhattan, Herman & Jennie were looking to move their young family out of the city. Herman had heard of a tailor shop that was for sale in Whitehall, New York. The couple was traveling by train to Whitehall with a stop over in Glens Falls. “The train station at the time was on Lawrence Street. So, they walked downtown and spent the night here,” Todd said, recalling the family history. The Feigenbaums decided that Glens Falls was the place that they wanted to stay. “My Grandmother fell in love with downtown. So they rented rooms in 89 Bay Street which was a boarding house at the time. Then a year or two later they bought 3 Fulton Street.” The tailor shop in Whitehall would have to fulfill someone else’s dream.

Herman Feigenbaum was a tailor by trade. Originally from Eastern Europe, he apprenticed with his uncle in London. After his apprenticeship, he realized that opportunities for a tailor were limited in his home town. So he decided to follow his brother who had moved to America.

Todd was able to trace his grandfather’s voyage to America. Herman left the Port of Bremen, Germany in December of 1902 and, according to the Ellis Island records, arrived in New York a week or two later. The family tried to trace Jennie’s journey the same way but were unable to find any record of her at Ellis Island. As it turned out, when Jennie left Eastern Europe at the age of either 15 or 16, she traveled by herself to Boston and took a boat to New York. Jennie and Herman met due to the kindness of Herman’s cousin. Herman’s cousin was a few years older than Jennie, and was willing to show Jennie ‘the ropes’ of living in America. She was the one that introduced Herman and Jennie.

The Feigenbaums lived in the lower east side of Manhattan from 1902 until they relocated to Glens Falls in 1917. Todd’s uncle found evidence of exactly where the family lived in a 1910 U.S. census. They lived on Rivington Street, which was in the heart of the tenement district. At the time, this was the most densely populated place on earth. Prompted by this information, Todd and his wife Julie went and found out that the building his family had lived in was still standing. To find out more of the history they visited the Tenement Museum which was down the street. Todd recalls a featured tenement apartment that had been preserved in 1937. “It was in the same condition that it had been when it had been closed. It was a tenement apartment with three rooms. It had 14 people living in the three rooms. The tour guide said that people were packed in like sardines. That was when I realized why my grandparents came upstate. They had been living in these cramped conditions with a growing family for 15 years.”

Once they moved upstate, Herman was able to enjoy the improved quality of life. He enjoyed fishing on Glen Lake. But to keep food on the table, Herman had to work three jobs. “He had the dry cleaning business, his tailor shop on South Street, and in the summer he would peddle vegetables in Schuylerville,” Todd said. The tradition of having to work multiple jobs to support the family didn’t stop with the first generation. The next generation had to work just as hard to keep the business going. Todd’s father Louis and his uncle Bill took over the family business in 1947 after they returned from the service. They moved the business from the family home into its current location at 89 ½ Bay Street. Louis had been a metal worker and aircraft mechanic. He helped build some of the prototypes of the P-51 Fighter, fondly known as the Mustang. Bill had been in the Coast Guard. “It’s funny because my father never expected to work in this business; he was a very highly skilled metal worker and aircraft mechanic. After the war, he had work all over the world. But his father’s health was starting to fail so he said ‘why don’t I come up and help’ and he got sucked into it. He had to help to support his family, and the business supported three families at that time, so my dad would go out and sell life insurance and real estate at night to earn extra money to raise his family.”

The story of how Todd got into the family business isn’t that far off from his father’s story. “So I was working as an analyst in the state legislature in Albany and my dad’s health was starting to fail, and I was kinda bored with what I was doing. So, we made all the plans so he could retire. We would build up the business then we could sell it. We made all of the plans, and the next morning he passed away. That was 37 years ago. So, I got thrust into the business a lot quicker than I had expected. But, I had worked in the business during college and summers so I knew the basics which was good because I didn’t have time to learn.” At that point, Todd took over the business with his wife Julie.

Todd has seen endless numbers of changes in ‘the rag trade’ during his tenure. There are a variety of challenges to the ever changing dry cleaning and tailoring business. “All of the changes to fabric that have taken place over the years. The industry has gone through so many changes in the last 50 or 60 years. Wash and wear. When polyester came along in the 60’s, the industry was decimated. The clothes no longer needed to be professionally cleaned. Then the industry rebounded in the 1980’s, and there has been a slow decline since the 1990’s. However, there have been peaks in business. In the early 2000’s businesses decided that they would allow their employees to dress more casually. Then as a result they saw a decrease in productivity. So the employees had to dress up for work again and everyone started to come back to the dry cleaner.”

Cultural shifts are one factor that the intrepid business has adjusted to. However, there has also been the evolution of environmental regulations. “We have a very ‘green’ operation. We have a solvent that is nontoxic, biodegradable, and earth friendly but to use things like that takes complex and expensive machinery. The machines are designed so that nothing goes into the environment. It’s much better for the environment than when you clean your clothes at home. Here all of the vapors and solvents go back into the tanks.”

Todd Feigenbaum has run the business through cultural changes, and he has heard the stories about all of the changes that the business has withstood. “Sixty years ago everyone dressed up for Easter. It would be so busy, it was even before my time, but the pressers would have cots in the back by the presses, and they would take turns taking naps because they would be pressing until midnight just to keep up with the work the week before Easter.”

Feigenbuam Cleaners has survived over the years due to the family’s hard work and ingenuity. An example of their ingenuity harkens back to the 1960’s during the Cuban Missile Crisis. There was a direct and dangerous confrontation between the United States and Soviet Union when the two superpowers came dangerously close to nuclear war. Families throughout the country had survival plans and bomb shelters and the Fiegenbaums had the fur vault.

The term vault suggests a bank-like construction and that is exactly the case. This vault was designed to house and protect 5,000 furs which the owners would store in the warmer months of the year. The vault even has a Moseler security door which was installed by the famous bank vault company. This vault has happily never needed to be used in a nuclear crisis, and it continues to store fur coats in a comfortable climate-controlled atmosphere.

Part of continuing the family business has been welcoming change. Todd and Julie took over the business in 1986. It was at that time that they realized that they would have to add more locations to reach customers.

“When my wife and I took over in 1986 we knew we needed to add locations because with the one location in downtown Glens Falls we didn’t have access to enough customers. So we opened the location in Queensbury and from there we opened in Clifton Park and we moved that location to Saratoga. We have had a number of different locations over the years. But currently it is Glens Falls, Queensbury, Saratoga/Wilton.”

There are struggles and rewards that go along with the work. “We are open six days a week. My goal has been to take two weeks of vacation back to back. Which we have never been able to do. This summer we may be able to do that. We are training more and more of our staff members to take on more responsibility. We have a couple of really good managers who are taking on more responsibility. So my wife and I can work a bit less.” Todd struggles with the idea of handing over the reins of a business that handles 250,000 garments a year. “This is a craft and so you constantly have to be paying attention to the quality. And there are so many issues and the average person has no idea the complexity of this business.”

Todd appreciates the qualities that his grandmother had seen in Glens Falls. “Glens Falls has a unique community. It has a rich history of innovators and entrepreneurs. A lot of innovative and courageous business people have made their homes here. There is a culture of community support.” As the third generation of the family business, Todd finds himself not completely sure what the future will hold when he and his wife decide to retire. His children are currently not interested in carrying on the family business but that may change as it did in previous generations. “The dry cleaning business is a challenging business but by the grace of God and a lot of hard work we have made it work and it is what it is.” The City of Glens Falls has benefited from the unpredictable success of what started out as an unplanned walk.