Farewell to the Old Curiosity Shop
Feature Article published in
Volume four, Issue 24 | June 23 - 29,
2005COMMUNITY|Edward
Maloney (above), the founder of Out of the Closet Thrift Shop, gets a hand from
Richard Kowall, one of the charitable venture’s volunteers. One of the
beauties of Out of the Closet Thrift shop was its East 81st Street location,
which combined an 1830s farmhouse with a horse stable from the 1850s out
back.Farewell to an Old
Curiosity ShopOut of
the Closet Thrift Shop closes after 15 years; Housing Works picks up
ballBy SETH J.
BOOKEYOut of the Closet Thrift Shop has
collected untold numbers of high-end giveaways in its East 81st Street venue and
turned them into much-needed dollars and donations for more than 70 AIDS
services organizations over a span that has now reached the 15-year
mark.Unfortunately, the steep rent
increases that have become an everyday fact of life in Manhattan and indeed
across the city have finally caught up with the charitable venture. Out of the
Closet is forced to close up shop for good on Gay Pride Weekend.
The thrift shop was the brainchild of
Edward Maloney, who surmounted a variety of hurdles trying to develop a
charitable thrift store during the first decade of the AIDS crisis. Facing the
possibility that it might finally be time to throw in the towel has been equally
difficult, Maloney said. For him, there is some consolation in the fact that
somebody is ready to step in to carry on the mission to which he has devoted
more than a decade and a
half.“Housing Works came into view
and the right road seemed obvious,” Maloney explained about the solution
he found after numerous sleepless nights and examination of many options.
“While our emphasis is wider and more generalized, they also help PWAs
[people living with AIDS] by focusing on the homeless and minority at-risk
communities. Several meetings with them convinced me that our very different
organizations had a lot in
common.”While Out of the Closet is
closing, starting on August 2, Housing Works will devote all 4,000 square feet
of its Columbus Avenue store to merchandise originally donated to
Maloney’s foundation, which will receive half the proceeds during a
special 50-day period.Matthew Bernardo,
president of Housing Works thrift stores, feels the two stores’ goals are
a good fit. He also said, “We’re happy with the merchandise.
We’re both on the higher end of the thrift-store ladder, and we can help
get the best prices for these
donations.”Maloney is also pleased
that his store’s “accumulated treasures” will be given more
exposure—and quadruple the space—beginning in
August.“It’s always sad to lose
someone who’s fighting for the same cause,” Bernardo said, in
obvious sympathy with the difficulties Maloney is having letting go of his own
enterprise. “It’s one less group generating funds for HIV and
AIDS.”Maloney first conceived the
idea for a store in 1985. Initially working with three friends, Maloney in 1986
ran afoul of an IRS agent who told him, “The words ‘AIDS’ and
‘charity’ don’t belong in the same sentence.” It took
the help of New York’s late Democratic Sen. Patrick Moynihan for the group
to overcome some hurdles to become incorporated with not-for-profit status in
1987. Then, the group had trouble convincing the major AIDS organizations at the
time to sponsor a shop. So, they borrowed enough money to open in 1991 at 220
East 81st Street.“We’ll
always be thankful to opera singers Jessye Norman and Peter Kazaras for their
faith and financial help in the very beginning,” said Richard Kowall,
treasurer for Out of the Closet, who also listed other early
supporters—film critic Vito Russo, journalist Andy Humm (a Gay City News
contributor), poet Alan Ginsberg, dancer Robert La Fosse, actor Harvey Fierstein
and activists Emery S. Hetrick and A. Damien Martin. Susan Horowitz of the
Newfest arranged a donation drive at the old Bombay Cinema on 57th Street, and
the late Father Mychal Judge showed up with two vans full of dry-cleaned donated
clothes.One of the delights of the store
that will be lost in the hand-off to Housing Works has been the space it has
occupied—an 1830s farmhouse. A back building—home to men’s
clothing, 10,000 books, and 3,000 records—is a horse stable from the
1850s. Perhaps in part due to the appeal
of the space, the store received consistently favorable press from the start.
Newsday declared it “easily the most charming of the lot,” in a
comparison with other Upper East Side thrift stores. Alongside ordinary
household items were pieces of Limoges, Meissen and Steuben, as well as fine art
from five major New York museums and all the auction houses. The store earned
“New York” magazine’s Best Thrift Shop designation by 1993.
PBS’s “Globe Trecker”
exposed the store to audiences on five continents, as did listings in New York
travel books published in France, Italy, Germany, Scandinavia and
Japan.“Because of such
extraordinary publicity, we’ve sent Gucci luggage to Venice, Pucci dresses
to Japan, 600 LPs to Norway, tea cups to London, fur coats to Alaska, 100 ties
to Prague and laser discs to Amsterdam,” Maloney recalled. “Great
things have been given to us because people know that we take very good care of
their donations.”Some of the
notable items that have moved through Out of the Closet included original
Picasso ceramic, pre-Columbian textiles and a painting by French Impressionist
Eugene Boudin.The store’s global
reach worked both ways—donations have come from “as far away as
England, Italy, and California,” Maloney said, and from personalities
“as diverse as Barry Diller, Mario Buatta and Walter
Cronkite.”TV spots on ABC’s
“20/20” and on a Gay Cable Network show have brought in a variety of
customers who have responded to the store’s “Old Curiosity
Shop” visual overload. Along with outfitting many New York waiters,
Maloney said, “We’ve had such fun dressing people who were going to
the Oscars, the Vienna Opera Ball and even the wedding of a Dutch crown
prince.”Out of the Closet has also
provided harder-to-find props for plays and movies. The shop has attracted its
share of celebrities through the years—Bette Midler, Patricia Neal,
Patrick Stewart and Dick Cavett, to name a few.
Store volunteer Maryell Semal, who has
worked at Out of the Closet since it opened, said, “As a New Yorker, I
wanted to work on AIDS and
homelessness.”Semal and a longtime
colleague from the Japan Society Gallery, Mistuoko Maekawa, joined together to
honor a friend who died of AIDS. While many repeat customers recall favorite
purchases with fondness, Semal explained that at least some professional dealers
have at time gotten “very angry that we know what we have, that we do
research on antiques and
artworks.”To make the
“charitable alchemy” as profitable as possible, Out of the Closet is
staffed exclusively by volunteers. After rent and expenses, the store has given
money and material goods to AIDS service organizations that provide hospital and
hospice care, programs for teens and gay adults, and educational, residential,
recreational and legal services for PWAs, as well as those doing AIDS education
work. The diverse group of more than 70 beneficiary groups has included the
Callen-Lorde Community Health Center, the Lesbian AIDS Project and the
Hetrick-Martin Institute.One longtime
beneficiary has been the Gay and Lesbian National Hotline, which provides peer
counseling and disseminates information on HIV transmission and
risk-reduction.“We find that a lot
of people calling us are feeling isolated,” said Brad Becker, the
hotline’s executive director. “They either don’t have good
information or don’t feel comfortable talking to someone in person. So we
can turn the call into a larger conversation about self-esteem. That affects
their [sexual]
decision-making.”Becker said most
support comes from individuals, but getting donations from Out of the Closet for
15 years “has been support we’ve been able to depend on—and a
great gift for us.”Highbridge
Woodcrest, a 90-bed facility for PWAs in the Bronx, has also been receiving both
financial grants and clothing donations from Out of the Closet for 15 years.
Charles Bolds, director of therapeutic recreation at Highbridge Woodcrest, noted
that for PWAs who are homeless or just released from hospitals, clothing has
been vital.“In recent years, with
PWAs living longer—and gaining weight—keeping them in clothes [that
fit] is important.”The store
usually sends two truckloads of clothing a year to the
facility.Like much of the rest of the
city, Out of the Closet has been affected by the changing economic tides
unleashed by 9/11. Maloney said that for the past three years, “Everyone
from Madison Avenue dealers to street vendors all tell us about slower sales
that have not recovered, and among our neighborhood regulars there is growing
unemployment and shrinking fixed
incomes.”On the other edge of the
economic sword has been the real-estate boom, which resulted in the
extraordinary rent increase that is forcing the store’s
closure.Out of the Closet is also
looking forward to continuing its efforts for the AIDS community by looking
toward the Web.“We will keep
looking for other ways to helps fight HIV/AIDS on our new homepage at
outofthecloset.us. Who knows? Maybe we will become the first virtual thrift
shop.”The 50-day event featuring
merchandise from Out of the Closet will begin August 2 at the Housing Works
store on Columbus Avenue, between 73rd and 74th Streets. The store will also
feature items from Out of the Closet in 10-day online auctions. Go to
housingworksauctions.com and click on “Shop
Windows.”
Posted: Thu - March 23, 2006 at 02:00 AM
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Published On: Jun 20, 2009 07:04 PM
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