CELEBRATING 100 YEARS
Feigenbaum Cleaners marks anniversary, ribbon cutting at new store
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y.» One longtime local business celebrated its 100-year anniversary on Wednesday at the grand opening of its newest location.
Feigenbaum Cleaners, founded in 1917 in Glens Falls, has provided quality cleaning and tailoring services in the area for more than a century.
On Wednesday, the company and the Saratoga County Chamber of Commerce held an anniversary celebration, along with a ribbon cutting ceremony for its new 18 Congress St. Feigenbaum Cleaners store in Saratoga Springs.
Founder Herman Feigenbaum, originally from eastern Europe, trained to be a tailor in London before heading to the United States in 1902. In New York City, he worked in the garment industry on the Lower East Side, where he learned about dry cleaning.
After moving upstate, Herman started the business as a small tailoring shop out of his Glens Falls home in May of 1917, with his wife Jennie. “For the first 30-something years it was actually in their home on Fulton Street,” said Todd Feigenbaum, Herman’s grandson who is now the company’s president. “Their living room was the office, and they would clean the clothes in the back and they would take them down to my grandfather’s tailor shop to press them and that’s how they did it.”
Todd continued, “That was the beginning of the business and it just kind of grew from there.”
When Herman discovered that there were no dry cleaners north of Albany at the time, the business expanded its services. “He got himself a machine and started off in dry cleaning,” Todd said.
Before Feigenbaum Cleaners began operating, it would take three days to get a suit professionally cleaned, including transportation to and from the Capital City.
The business entered its second generation after World War II, when brothers Louis and Bill Feigenbaum came back from the service and joined their parents in the family business.
Todd and his wife, Julie Frazer, took over in the 1980s around when the company started expanding with additional locations.
“Feigenbaum Cleaners first came to Saratoga Springs in 1992. Our journey in Saratoga has been interesting,” Todd said. “We started off in Saratoga 25 years ago and we were right across the street.” After several moves, including its most recent relocation last month from Railroad Place to its current downtown spot, Feigenbaum Cleaners is just about 100 yards away from its original Spa City site.
Meanwhile in 2000, Feigenbaum Cleaners opened a second Saratoga area store at in Wilton Square.
The two other Feigenbaum Cleaners stores are in downtown Glens Falls and Queensbury.
From these four locations, Feigenbaum Cleaners serves a wide range of customers as far as Clifton Park, Delmar, Niskayuna, and Lake George through its pickup and delivery services.
Todd doesn’t think his grandfather could have ever imagined that his fledgling, little business would still be going 100 years later.
Today, Feigenbaum Cleaners is run by Todd and his wife, along with business partner Bonnie Smith.
Todd’s goal for the future of the business is to keep it growing, “and continuing to provide the same high quality service that we’ve been doing for 100 years,” he said. Herman’s meticulousness about clothing is something Todd said he’d like to carry on as Feigenbaum Cleaners enters its second century.
Saratoga County Chamber of Commerce President Todd Shimkus said at Wednesday’s event that having century-old businesses like Feigenbaum Cleaners is fortunate for the community.
“One of the cool parts about Saratoga, that I hope we don’t ever lose is the fact that the 100-year ones, the older ones, are local and independently owned. Those are always the best because they invest in the community, they give back to the community and they probably provide the best services and products you can find anywhere,” he said. “That’s what makes us unique, without a doubt.”
More information about Feigenbaum Cleaners is available online at feigenbaumcleaners.com.