Inside a Brooklyn Warehouse, a Soho Loft, and a Cabinet of Curiosities

Three cool places I vistited in New York this month.

Apr 17, 2025

Ciao! I’m back from Italy with lots of Easter chocolate and a nice little head cold. Instead of taking the day off to binge-watch The Pitt, I want to tell you about three cool spaces I visited in New York before I left…

1. The Brooklyn Army Terminal

I went to high school in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, and every day, I’d take the bus back and forth from Manhattan along the BQE. We’d drive right over the Brooklyn Army Terminal, yet I had no idea it existed until recently.

During World War II, the Terminal, which is located in Sunset Park, was the largest military supply base in the United States. Elvis Presley deployed from there in 1958, along with 1,170 other soldiers. Before that, it also served as a military prison and a storage space for illicit drugs and alcohol during Prohibition.

A few weeks ago, I found myself there for entirely different reasons. In 1981, the city purchased the facility, and it has since been transformed into spaces for various businesses, particularly those with a focus on sustainability. When I arrived for a visit to FABSCRAP, a nonprofit fabric recycling center, my jaw dropped; I felt like I was in the Brooklyn version of Blade Runner.

Concrete loading docks jut out of the sides of the buildings, and there’s even a spooky out-of-service train, which was used for transporting cargo…

Somehow, my tour of FABSCRAP was even more mind-blowing than the space itself, though. Founded in 2016 to combat commercial textile waste, its warehouse is filled from floor to ceiling with garbage bags containing a variety of fabric scraps sent in from brands. Volunteers sort through nearly 7,000 pounds of material each week (!), which is eventually shredded to create insulation, carpet padding, furniture lining, moving blankets, and other products, preventing it from being sent to a landfill.

FABSCRAP now works with around 850 companies, but I was there specifically with Kyrgies, a wool slipper brand that collaborated with FABSCRAP to create zero-waste kimonos, which were released last week and are entirely compostable. (Cool.) FABSCRAP co-founder and creative director Camille Tagle explained the process and gave a tour of the space, which also features a small shop where visitors and volunteers can purchase donated scraps, thread, buttons, zippers, etc., at a reasonable price. I saw two older women, one of whom had clearly biked to Sunset Park, discussing possible baby quilts. It was a classic “only in New York” moment.

2. The 6397 Showroom

A few days later, I visited another relatively unknown New York space that I’ve also walked by thousands of times: The Soho office of The NEWS, a fashion agency co-owned by Stella Ishii, who was the first to introduce Comme des Garçons to the U.S. in the 1980s and Martin Margiela in the 1990s. In 2013, Stella launched 6397, a New York-based brand that is now a collaborative effort between herself, the designer Lizzie Owens, Judy Collinson, the legendary former Executive VP at Barneys, and Jenny Smith, head of sales, who has worked with the News for 15 years.

Its showroom is a vast, light-filled loft with hardwood floors, where the 6397 collection is displayed alongside artwork by Stella’s husband, Jerry Kamitaki. In one corner is also an area for market appointments, where the first Row collection was sold. Fashion history!!! Stella also showed me the fake newspapers she used to send out with brand news, before everything was done over email.

I spent most of the time gawking at the space, but I was also very intrigued by some 6397 fall pieces, and spent a lot of time on the website afterward staring at this shirt. I’ve been a fan of the brand for a while, and I wish I could channel its easygoing styling in my everyday life. And live in Stella’s loft.

3. The Museum at FIT

Last but not least, I also visited the Museum at FIT because three different subscribers, one of whom was Charlotte, told me I would love its new exhibit, “Fashioning Wonder: A Cabinet of Curiosities.”

I didn’t realize that cabinets of curiosities were precursors to modern museums, or collections of objects owned and paraded around by European royals, aristocrats, and scholars. They could be a literal piece of furniture, a room, or a series of rooms, and they could include anything from shells to shoes. (I love the idea of traveling with a cabinet of my stuff today, setting up in a hotel room, and being like, “Hey, guys, look at all the freaky shit I’ve collected.”)

The exhibit is basically one big game of hide and seek. Visitors are invited to open drawers, peek under flaps, and listen to recordings. I learned that in the 18th century, handheld music boxes were often placed in snuff boxes. During the Victorian era, women wore “posy holders,” or small vases, around their necks to hold “nosegays,” which helped diminish foul odors. I also discovered that the late 16th-century version of a Starface pimple patch was called a “patch box,” and they were just as cute-looking. In addition to an Elsa Peretti oyster shell bag, my favorite object was a table covered in feathers by milliner-turned-photographer Bill Cunningham.