7/24/2023 0 Comments Venture forthe steuben![]() Steuben (pronounced stew-BEN) glass has servedĪs a gift for all purposes for as long as some wealthy New Yorkers can remember. In a less official role this summer, two hosts of the “Today” show, Matt Lauer and Al Roker, presented a Steuben crystal cat to Pope Benedict XVI in Rome. When Prince Charles married Lady Diana in 1981, the Reagans gave them an engraved Steuben bowl as a wedding gift. Inauguration, members of his cabinet surprised him with a foot-tall pedestaled cup whose engravings depicted his life story. In 1954, on the first anniversary of Eisenhower’s He gave custom-made glassware as gifts to heads of state and also collected some himself. Eisenhower was one of Steuben’s biggest fans. Throughout that period, an engraved fruit bowl or animal figurine handmade by Steuben was considered a can’t-miss present, a sentiment burnished by the choices of American presidents from Harry S. When it opened its first store in the city on Fifth Avenue in 1934.įor the rest of the 20th century, there was a Steuben shop in one location or another along the most elegant stretch of Fifth Avenue. It was still a division of Corning Glass Works Sykes declined to discuss, will bring an end to Steuben’s 77-year presence as a retailer in Manhattan. ![]() The store’s closing, the precise timing of which Mr. Very few people want to pay what you had to pay to have a product made by Steuben in their life.” “TheĮnd result is you have very expensive products. Allen, whose industrial-design studio is in the East Village. ![]() “Steuben was one of the last companies that I know of that was doing that sort of high-quality manufacturing here in America,” said Mr. While the company sells off its inventory of expensive and often quirky products, like an $1,800 widemouthed piggy bank designed by Harry Allen in Manhattan. The staff of the company’s large store and showroom in Midtown may stay on longer In Corning, more than 70 people, some of them master glass blowers, will lose their jobs by the end of November, Mr. “The difficult economy did not help us in the recovery.” “We did not see an increase in new consumers or established collectors,” Ron Sykes, a spokesman for the Schottenstein Stores Corporation, which bought Steuben from Corning Inc. The cause of the company’s demise was a waning appetite for fancy crystal that was exacerbated by the weak economy, company officials said. Suitable for queens and presidents, brides and retiring executives.īut in a few months, wedding guests and sheepish husbands will have to find a substitute for gifts from Steuben because the 108-year-old glassmaker is shutting down its factory in Corning, N.Y., and its flagship store Pieces of Steuben glass, those quintessential samples of American artisanship, have proved ![]() Andrea Mohin/The New York Times The Steuben Glass flagship store on Madison Avenue will close after decades of selling fancy glassware.įor decades, they have solved the riddle of what to give those who seem to have everything. ![]()
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