Curtains Close On A Beloved Fabric Store

By April Koral
POSTED DEC. 29, 2006

If ever there were a store that stoked women’s fantasies, it is P&S Fabrics. Looking at the bins of buttons and zippers, the floor-to-ceiling baskets stuffed with skeins of yarn of every color, the aisles stacked with bolts of fabrics of hundreds of patterns, how a woman can dream.

“So many projects I made from things here,” sighed Irina Genyuk, who works as a manicurist at Ula Day Spa on Harrison Street. Her eyes took in the jumble of notions, trimmings and threads.“Curtains, pillows, beautiful things.” After 23 years at 355 Broadway, near Franklin Street, P&S is closing this month. (The building is expected to be razed and replaced with condos.) And thousands of knitters, sewers and craftspeople are feeling what Genyuk is feeling.

“It’s disgusting,” she said.

There was something about P&S, its fans said, that delighted and inspired them.

“Every time I walked in there the colors and textures would grab me,” said Suellen Epstein, who owns Children’s Tumbling on Murray Street. Epstein relied on P&S for all her materials for costumes and props. “I’d see something I’d never seen before and get a new idea,” she said. “P&S catered to people who liked to be creative. I’m going to miss them so much.”

The store held another allure. For the shopper who liked to rummage, it offered the joy of discovery. “I got this feeling when I went in there, a feeling when you don’t know what you’re going to find,” said Carol Eldridge, who belongs to a knitting club that meets at Klatch Cafe on Maiden Lane.  “P&S wasn’t a store with trendy fancy lighting. It had clutter and jumbled-up stuff, and sometimes you had to dig deep to find things. But when you did it was wonderful. It was all about the find.”

Mark Spiegel, who owns P&S with his brother Isaac, says that what brought customers from all over the city was the variety of merchandise.

“We’re like a supermarket,” said Spiegel. “Would you go to a place that just sells milk or bread? We carry almost everything you can think of. I’m also famous for my cheap yarns. A lot of my customers can’t afford 100 percent wool.”

The Spiegels took over the store from their father, Harry Spiegel, an  Auschwitz survivor who opened a cap shop after coming here. In 1984, Harry Spiegel and a partner bought a yarn store across the street from P&S’s present location.  

The threat of eviction has long been hanging over the brothers. “Two and a half years ago,” Mark recalls, “there was another buyer and this guy would come in all the time and say, ‘Remember you’re out on May 31st.’ Then the deal fell through. But I lost many nights sleep.”

The Spiegels are trying to rent a much smaller space on an upper floor in a nearby building, though they, like their customers, know it won’t be the same.

“I hate to see the landscape change,” said Carol Eldridge. “We used to shop in Woolworth’s for yarn and notions and they went out of business.  I’m saddened that P&S won’t be here any more. When a P&S goes down, when a building goes down, it hurts my heart.”