A swastika armband was spotted at an Upper East Side tailor on Monday, a disturbing discovery made public after Council Member Julie Menin shared an image of the hateful symbol on X / Twitter.
A constuient in my district alerted me to the fact that a tailor on the UES has this hanging in his queue to be tailored. I have reached out to this business and they will not be tailoring this item and @NYPDnews is currently investigating. pic.twitter.com/IiLZUwVSr7
— Julie Menin (@JulieMenin) May 6, 2024
A representative from Menin’s office told East Side Feed that the business in question was Ignacio’s Tailor, located at 119 East 60th Street (between Park and Lexington avenues). We called Ignacio’s on Tuesday morning and the person we spoke with offered his sincere apologies to the public, saying it was a mistake while also noting that it may have been someone trying to make them look bad. He also said that he was the one who alerted the police when he found the armband. Menin’s office told us “the NYPD was already at the location when she reached out and spoke to an employee,” and that they would not be servicing the item.
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A manager at Ignacio’s told the NY Post that the employee who accepted the shirt with the swastika – which he believes was dropped off by a young couple described to the Post as “a black man with braids and a white woman in their 30s” – didn’t understand what the symbol meant. But some people aren’t buying it.
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“From the woman who spotted it: ‘I went to Ignacio’s tailoring on 60th street and this was in his shop hanging on the rack.’ The tailor allegedly knew what the symbol was and took the job anyway,” wrote Jewish activist Elizabeth Savetsky on Instagram.
Others are giving the business the benefit of the doubt, suggesting that the outfit may have been a costume for a film or theater production.
The Post additionally reported that the customer ticket included a phone number with a Russian area code, and one online commenter said he tried to call the number but it was out of service. “I called the # on the ticket [and] it doesn’t exist,” the individual wrote. “I feel like someone did this to mess with the Jewish customers. Very sick.”
The same person claims the business owner – who is “def not an antisemite” – is trying to pull surveillance photos to identify the person who dropped the armband off.
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Looks like a pretty new swastika. It’s difficult for me to believe that there is anyone on the planet who doesn’t recognize this symbol of hate. The only excuse that isn’t nefarious is that some local theatre is cleaning costumes from “The Sound of Music”. However, this smells like some form of weird setup to throw shade on the dry cleaner.