Steam + Felt = Hats, March 1, 1938.

The occupants of the upper floors of this building are hat manufacturers. The construction and finishing of felt hats (the material in style for hat making in the 1930s) involved massive amounts of steam to mold and shape the products.

Surrounded by the garment district (then covering 34th to 40th Streets between Sixth and Ninth Avenue) and the fur district, the millinery district covered a smaller footprint than the others. In fact, in the early mid century more than 15% of the country's (not city, but the whole country's) output of hats was manufactured in this building captured by Berenice Abbott in 1938.