New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio

I am writing on behalf of all present and future designers and manufacturers to express concern about the future of the Garment Center.
New York is the fashion capital of the world, and the hundreds of small businesses in the Garment Center are the industry’s backbone. Garment Center businesses to need The Center’s sample rooms, cut and sew contractors, pattern making services and fabric and trim suppliers are crucial to our company’s ability to develop new products, to carry out quick-to-market, reorder and high end production. There are many fashion companies that rely on a functioning Garment Center, yet we are beginning to see alarming numbers of support businesses lose their leases. We therefore respectfully ask that the revised zoning will provide enough space for a sufficient production and supplier core, there are still more than 1 million sq. ft. in production and logistical support in use in the Garment Center losing much more of the space that these support businesses currently occupy, which is a small fraction of the Center’s overall space, would harm the fashion industry in ways that no one can foresee.

Save the Garment Center would like to preserve the fashion industry support system that provides 180,000 jobs for New Yorkers, and is part of that constellation of industries that make New York City the creative capital of the United States.