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Fabric Row’s Identity
Changing with the Times
SASHA ROGELBERG | JE STAFF
A fter 90 years in business, fab-
ric store Maxie’s Daughter
will shut its doors in the com-
ing months and, along with it, termi-
nate a symbol of Jewish life on Fabric
Row that spanned a century.

“It’s a grieving process,” owner Eric
Trobman said of putting the building
on sale.

It’s not just Trobman who’s had to
make tough calls. Of the once 20-plus
fabric stores that thrived in the now-
Queen Village neighborhood in the
20th century, only seven remain, and
only four are Jewish-owned.

The area’s changing prospects are
met with mixed feelings from the older
generation. The vibrant immigrant
neighborhood of decades past is gone,
but it’s been replaced with a new gen-
eration of small businesses that don’t
reflect the historic fabric conglomera-
many of his generation who settled in
Fabric Row, emigrated from Ukraine
in 1923. His father was a tailor who
immigrated to the United States 13
years before the rest of his family, and
the family started their business selling
schmattas from pushcarts, a popular
means of selling goods in the neigh-
borhood from 1905-’55, according to
Palmer. Many of the immigrants who settled
there did so for similar reasons: to
escape the turmoil of their home coun-
tries and build a new life among the
rest of the Jewish population.

“They were really hustlers. They were
hungry, and they built up tremendous
businesses,” said David Auspitz, whose
family owned Famous 4th Street Deli
from 1933 to 2005.

By the early 20th century, Fabric
Row, though defined by the few dozen
textile businesses in the area, was a
vibrant community.

“The people who worked on Fabric
“I can’t imagine my grandfather standing
here looking at glitter and sequins and
spandex fabrics because back then you
were in a three-piece wool or cotton suit or
linen. What would the first generation of
my grandparents think?”
JOSEPH FLEISHMAN
tion that made the street famous.

“Things have changed over the years.

I have pictures of how it used to be …
and things change over time; people
change; times change,” Trobman said.

Three generations prior, the Maxie’s
Daughter building at 742 S. Fourth
St. belonged to the family of Michele
Winitsky Palmer, a writer whose father
co-owned a wholesale textile business
called Wintech Fabrics. Palmer docu-
mented the history of Fabric Row on her
website fabricmuseum.org, which con-
tains oral histories of the families who
lived and operated businesses there.

Palmer’s father Louis Winitsky, like
6 Row lived there with their families,
so there had to be other kinds of busi-
nesses like bakeries and delicatessens,
fish markets, chicken markets, all of
that,” Palmer said.

As the next generation of would-be
store owners grew up, they were more
interested in attending college than
continuing the family business, Palmer
said. Even her family moved from a
small apartment above a fabric store to
a roomier home on the Main Line.

Consumers in the late 20th century
were no longer interested in buying
fabrics in the same volume they once
were. Fast fashion and online stores
MARCH 17, 2022 | JEWISHEXPONENT.COM
Louis Winitsky, co-owner of Wintech Fabrics, in the 1950s on a trip to New York
have made clothing shopping faster
and easier than ever before.

The styles of the time are also dif-
ferent, with window blinds replacing
heavy drapes and curtains. According
to Auspitz, Civil War reenactors and
theater production companies also
used to patronize the businesses; cos-
tume stores provided worthy compe-
tition. Even with competition mounting,
fabric stores, now with older owners,
adapted to the changing market slowly,
if at all. Maxie’s Daughter has no web-
site or online store. A single Instagram
post from 2017 has three “likes,” a
betrayal of the fabric store’s former role
as the cornerstone of the community.

Fleishman Fabrics is one of the
few textile stores with a Jewish leg-
acy to keep afloat, a feat owner Tricia
Fleishman attributes to the store’s abil-
ity to adapt to the changing times.

“We actually sort of reinvented our-
selves,” she said. “We’ve been around
for close to 90 years. And we used to
be at Fifth and Monroe [streets], and
we were a wholesale retail house. Then
seven years ago…we decided to move
to 4th Street, and we went from whole-
sale to retail.”
At the onset of the pandemic and



Fabric Row in the 1920s in the heyday of the pushcart era
Courtesy of Michele Winitsky Palmer
the first wave of lockdowns, Fleishman
Fabrics immediately filed for exemption
and was deemed an essential business
by the city. They argued that because
of the personal protective equipment
shortage, materials from their store
could be used to make cloth masks.

As giants such as Amazon, Walmart
and Jo-Anne no longer stocked textiles
and elastics, Fleishman Fabrics was
able to keep its doors open.

But the fabric store has also set itself
apart due to the continued interest in
the business by Tricia Fleishman’s son,
Joshua Fleishman.

The 34-year-old joined the business
seven years ago after helping the family
move locations.

“I felt that was the right time to be a
part of things, to kind of put my spin
on where the business would head in
the future and to work alongside my
parents,” Joshua Fleishman said.

Auspitz, as well as Palmer and
Trobman, are optimistic and believe
that the new businesses are in line with
the spirit of the old. The “fabulous”
window displays in the new businesses
mirror those from generations prior.

For the Fleishmans, the changing
landscape of Fabric Row offers the pos-
sibility of new business from younger
audiences drawn to the boutiques and
restaurants that now line Fourth and
South streets. With their business
secure, the inevitable change appears
less scary.

“I can’t imagine my grandfather
standing here looking at glitter and
sequins and spandex fabrics because
back then you were in a three-piece
wool or cotton suit or linen,” Joshua
Fleishman said. “What would the first
generation of my grandparents think?
What would other merchants from
this block think of the way things are
today? It’s a very fun dynamic to be
a part of it. And in the ever-changing
landscape, we get to be a part of new
fashion.” JE
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