From Pushcarts to NYC Menswear Icon

It was an inauspicious beginning.

Harry Rothman was just 15 when his father was struck and killed by a horse-drawn ice wagon on New York’s Lower East Side in 1918. The oldest of eight children, he was asked to find a job to support his family. Without a lot of experience or education, Rothman quit school and started selling rags out of a pushcart in his neighborhood.

He did well enough and in 1926 opened Harry Rothman’s, selling leftover merchandise from top manufacturers at discounted prices. Over the years, Rothman operated in a number of different locations around the city, ultimately settling in the Flatiron/Union Square area.

In 1975 when he was 73 years old, he and his brother signed a 10-year lease on the space at 18th Street and Fifth Avenue. They both died in 1985.

Enter Ken Giddon, Rothman’s grandson.

The son of Harry Rothman’s daughter Phoebe, Giddon was living in Boston and preparing to go to the MIT business school in the fall. The family asked him to go to New York and help with the liquidation. He agreed and headed south for what he thought would be two weeks.

Fast forward 41 years and Giddon is still in New York and is operating his grandfather’s store — now simply called Rothmans — as it celebrates its centennial. Although he had no retail experience — he didn’t even work in the store during the summer or on school breaks — he quickly found himself enamored with the business.

“We had hired April Marcus to do a four- or five-month liquidation and I thought it was pretty interesting,” he recalled. “I was learning a lot about advertising and marketing and running a business. So I deferred business school for six months and halfway through that six-month period, I started getting crazy ideas to reopen it.”

He said he didn’t have any money, but a cousin who was a banker helped him secure a small loan, he found a vacant spot on Union Square, which was pretty “decrepit” at the time, he said, and started capitalizing on his grandfather’s reputation.

“I went to vendors like Norman Hilton and Hickey Freeman and said, ‘If I do this, would you support me,’” he said. They did, and he was in business.

“I was faking it,” he admitted. “It was kind of an acting job.”

Because Harry Rothman was a discounter, Giddon followed in those footsteps in the beginning. “But we tried to be a younger, hipper discounter,” said Giddon, who was 26 at the time.

A couple of years later, he convinced his younger brother Jim to join him. Jim Giddon was contemplating law school and, unlike his brother, had actually worked a few summers for his grandfather during college. Although he too had expected to stay only a short time, he became the store manager “and never left,” he said, now 36 years later.

The Giddons are unique in that their family business jumped a generation. Harry Rothman had two daughters, Phoebe and Linda, and “he would never let them work in the clothing business,” Jim Giddon said. “Harry was very into education — because he didn’t have one — and he made sure his daughters married educated men,” Ken Giddon added.

But while Harry Rothman may not have had a college degree, he was street smart, a natural-born salesman and a progressive thinker.

“My grandfather started with nothing and ended up being very, very successful,” Ken Giddon said. “Many people say he was the first guy to come up with the idea of taking overruns from manufacturers and putting his own label on them.” He created brands named after streets on the Lower East Side such as Eldridge and Hester and licensed the names.

But his grandsons had a different vision for the store.

When they reopened Rothmans, it was the heyday of discounters such as Moe Ginsburg, Syms, NBO, BFO and other popular off-pricers. “Everybody was in that game, and it was a big game,” Ken Giddon said. “All I knew was you could go into manufacturers and buy stuff at a discount and then sell at a discount. I don’t know if we were so smart or just like slow on the uptake, but over time, we started getting out of it.”

The transition was gradual, they said, and with the help of a strong staff of buyers with a keen eye for product, they made the switch. “We always had a good team who could recognize good product, find something that wasn’t in a lot of stores, was well made, and our customers would like,” Ken Giddon said. “We ended up just easing into it, and now we don’t compete on price at all. Whether we’re a specialty store or a mini department store, we focus on hospitality and giving our customers the best experience. We don’t worry about what part of the market we occupy. We just want to keep our customer happy and service them and their families.”

In addition to the 11,000-square-foot flagship on 18th Street and Park Avenue South, Rothmans operates stores in Scarsdale and Bronxville, N.Y. The Scarsdale unit, which opened in 2003, has been “a complete home run,” Ken Giddon said. “We just won the Best [men’s boutique] of Westchester for 19 of the last 20 years and we have a big following up there.”

In 2009, Rothmans joined forces with Lubin’s, a men’s and boys’ shop in Yonkers, bringing it into the Scarsdale unit. “We’re the only game within 100 miles that has an in-depth boys’ clothing department for communions and bar mitzvahs,” Ken Giddon said.

One thing Rothmans doesn’t have is womenswear — never has, never will. “It’s a totally different game,” Jim Giddon said. “We never really considered it.”

Instead, the Giddons work to develop trust and long-lasting relationships with the community and their customers, many of whom are multigenerational. They come to Rothmans for their tailored clothing, a hallmark of the business, as well as their sportswear.

Tailored clothing now accounts for around half of Rothmans’ sales, with more casual product representing the remainder. Top vendors include Canali, Corneliani, Fradi, Jack Victor, David Donahue, Citizens of Humanity, Faherty and Billy Reid.

“That’s one thing that’s changed over the years,” Jim Giddon said. “When we first started out, we had our grandfather’s connections, but we used to have to beg vendors to sell us. But as we started maturing and growing and getting a reputation, things have flipped, and now brands come to us. So it’s been a huge turnaround.”

Helping with that turnaround have been some longstanding employees including Jennifer Calcagni-O’Dean, director of stores, who has been with the company for more than 20 years, and Lacy McAngus, general merchandise manager and fashion director, who has been with Rothmans for nearly 12 years.

“Jim and I are not designers,” Ken Giddon said. “We have good taste. We don’t have the best taste in the industry, but we’re really good observers. We can walk into a trade show now with our experience and sense what line is hot just by the vibe or the conversation in a booth. We try to do the Wayne Gretzky thing and go where the puck is going to be.”

In addition to the mix, the other thing that has changed over the years has been competition — or lack thereof. “Most of our competitors have vanished,” Jim Giddon said. “The thing we take the most pride in,” his brother added, “is that Jim and I aren’t the smartest guys, but we’re very resilient. We get knocked down all the time.”

But every time, they have managed to rebound, they said, whether it was the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Hurricane Sandy, the COVID-19 pandemic and even the significant looting they sustained after the George Floyd murder. “We just keep doing it,” Ken Giddon said.

Looking to the future, they plan to continue to keep doing it. Will Giddon, Ken’s 28-year-old son, joined Rothmans during the pandemic and is now firmly entrenched in the business. Ken Giddon’s two other children as well as Jim Giddon’s two children have opted out of the family business. “They like their weekends,” Jim Giddon said.

Jim Giddon, who is nearly always in tailored clothing, oversees more of the store operations, while his brother, the king of casualwear, is the “big picture guy — always keeping an eye on what’s next,” Jim Giddon said. And Will Giddon “brings a younger perspective,” his father said. “That’s so important with things like using AI.”

Will Giddon, whose title is brand director, was given free rein to create Rothmans Next, a department focused on brands targeted to a younger customer that has brought new vendors and shoppers into the store.

Over the years, Rothmans has been open to trying a lot of different things, some of which worked and others that didn’t. In addition to Rothmans Next, there was TestShop, a blend between a pop-up and a concession model, and a second New York City store at Manhattan West that was only open for two years.

What did stick was the store in Bronxville, Harry: A Rothmans Project, that offers a curated assortment in around 1,000 square feet.

“We’re always trying something new,” Ken Giddon said. “If someone comes up with a great idea, we’ll entertain it. We’re going to be wrong sometimes, but that’s also what makes it fun.”

With the three stores, the bulk of Rothmans’ business comes from its brick-and-mortar sites. Although it does have an online presence, the business is small. “To do it right, you need a separate team, and it’s not worth it to us,” Jim Giddon said. “We love our vendors, but they’re all competing with us online,” his brother added. “Their cost of goods sold is very different than my cost of goods sold. Matter of fact, it’s less than half, so they can go 60 percent off online and be making money, and we can’t. Only exclusive product works online, so we don’t put a lot of energy into it.”

Instead, the business is active on social media as well as in community affairs. Ken Giddon is head of the Scarsdale Business Alliance; was one of the founders of New York Cares, a volunteer organization in the city; is on the board of Career Gear, which provides professional clothing to men seeking employment, and is also a member of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s Small Business Alliance to combat shoplifting and retail theft. Jim Giddon is on the board of Union Square Partnership.

“We don’t just want to be taking money out of the community, we want to be giving back of our time and our energy,” Ken Giddon said.

That includes supporting other local businesses, such as the venerable Old Town Bar next door where this interview was conducted. The gastropub is one of the oldest in New York, established in 1892.

Although not quite as old as the Old Town Bar, Rothmans predates the Great Depression, the Empire State Building, the Chrysler Building, the Holland Tunnel and World War II. And the brothers believe their future is bright.

“We had our best year last year and the year before that was our best year ever,” Ken Giddon said.

Although he declined to provide a volume figure, industry estimates place his sales at between $10 million and $15 million annually. He said they constantly brainstorm with other retailers and the information they glean helps them weather the storms.

So where do the Giddons see Rothmans in the future? “In 10 years, I’ll be less involved,” said Ken Giddon. “Jim will start to get tired, and the next generation will have to be more involved.”

“We have a really good team, so let’s hope they want to stay involved because they’re really good at what they do,” Jim Giddon added.

“We’ve had a really good run,” Ken Giddon said. “If it ended tomorrow — and I don’t expect it to — it’s been great. Way better than we ever thought.”

And he’s sure his grandfather would approve how he and his brother have saved and evolved the business he started so long ago. But while times have changed, there’s one thing they never forgot. “As Harry Rothman once said: ‘We’re not curing cancer, we’re just selling pants,’” Ken Giddon said.