Stuck in a Moment You Can’t Get Out Of | The Garment Worker | YouTube Rabbithole
This song came out in January ‘01 and may be considered one of U2’s lesser-known hits. My Uncle T mentioned it to me so despite growing up in a household of constant U2 on in the background, this song was new to me. It has a US version music video *Cough, cough, if you scroll to the YouTube Rabbithole, cough, cough* that features John Madden with a fictionalized football game where a rookie kicker by the name Paul Hewson misses a field goal, and thus is stuck in a moment he can’t get over. Bono’s real name is Paul Hewson, my mom didn’t know that so odds are @YouTheReader didn’t either.
Strong open by Bono. He has overcome his fears and no longer cares what people think of him. All he’s concerned with now is trying to make music that he enjoys.
After doing some research, the lyrics to this song are based on a fictional conversation between two friends about suicide. Unfortunately for Bono, this was inspired by a real-life event. INXS’s lead singer, Michael Hutchence, took his own life on November 22, 1997, and Bono was a close friend of his. In particular, Bono wrote the lyrics with a bit of aggression, "It's a row between mates. You're kinda trying to wake them up out of an idea. In my case it's a row I didn't have while he was alive. I feel the biggest respect I could pay to him was not to write some stupid soppy f--king song, so I wrote a really tough, nasty little number, slapping him around the head. And I'm sorry, but that's how it came out of me."
I’ll get serious here, everybody has their bad days. I’m not going to pretend to be an expert on mental health but no matter what, don’t be afraid to seek help. Whether it be talking to a therapist, a simple phone call to a friend/family, or an activity that you find enjoyable. Don’t forget that you’re never as alone as you may think you are.
Enjoy the moments where you feel like a million bucks, but don’t let it get to your head. At the same time, when you’re feeling down, don’t get too stuck in the moment, tomorrow is another day, and start to another week!
The Garment Worker
This week’s Stumblin’ Along was inspired by The Garment Worker statue located at 555 7th Ave, New York, NY 10018. The statue made by Judith Weller is found in the middle of The City’s Garment District and near the Port Authority Bus Terminal. I’ve walked by it quite a bit on my search for the best pints of Guinness in New York.
Full disclosure, I had no idea what garment even meant and I have no fashion sense so this isn’t a piece on what is hot in the streets. As a huge 90s guy - Nikes, jeans, and a Champion pullover sweatshirt sound good to me. That said, New York City is full of fashion history.
The Garment District is known for its historic role in the production and manufacturing of clothing, however, before it became The Fashion District the area was a part of what was known as the Tenderloin. The Tenderloin was the entertainment and red-light district of New York. From the onset as a country, New York City served as the United States’ source for the clothing industry. New York had always been the center for textile storage so it was only natural that the production of clothing should take place here. When Elias Howe Jr. invented the first American-patented sewing machine in 1846, the clothing industry suddenly exploded.
This crazy-looking bastard was born on a farm in Spencer, Massachusetts. After the financial panic of 1837, Howe moved to Boston and started working for Ari Davis. @YouTheReader I am not related to Ari Davis just in case you’re wondering. Davis’ shop was for mariner tools and scientific equipment mostly for boats. Thus the Davis shop was home to inventive dreams and gossip was often discussed. Local legend has it that this is how Howe gained the inspiration for his sewing machine. When an inspiring inventor brought in a knitting machine seeking encouragement, Davis replied to the man, “Why are you wasting your time over a knitting machine? Take my advice, try something that will pay. Make a sewing machine.” The customer replied, “It can't be done,” but Howe wasn't so sure. (Source: History of Cambridge) Howe would eventually leave Boston for New York to set up the Howe Sewing Machine Co. factory because, well obviously, it’s the superior city.
Howe’s sewing machine and the Civil War aligned with the Garment District’s rise to prominence. Mass-produced uniforms like the one you see on the unidentified soldier above were needed to fight the Confederates. The government turned to manufacturers in New York City to make thousands of ready-made uniforms. Up until this point, women held most of the positions in the clothing industry and most Americans made their own clothes. Once the war was over, men in the 1880s started filling these skilled positions. Most of these men who came over in mass migration at the time were Jewish immigrants from Poland and Russia. By 1880 New York produced more garments than its four closest urban competitors combined.
Of all immigrant groups arriving in the United States between 1899 and 1910, Jews had the highest proportion of skilled workers, at 65%. More importantly, one-sixth of the Jewish workforce in Russia was involved in clothing manufacturing, with over 250,000 workers, so they knew what they were doing on arrival to New York. By 1910, the garment industry incorporated around 46% of the industrial workforce in The City. Most of the clothing industry’s work was done remotely from home in tenements that had brutal conditions. Thus workers like the girls above paraded for the abolishment of child labor. Regulations were passed for better working conditions like requiring better lighting and thus industry loft factories were created. Things were still brutal for workers then, all culminating to a head in 1911 when the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire happened down by Washington Square. I’m not getting too far in the weeds with that horrific event now because we’re sticking with the Garment District.
Not only were labor parades used in the 1910s to defend garment workers. Benjamin “Dopey Benny” Fein was an early Jewish American gangster who dominated New York labor racketeering in the 1910s. He was hired by the United Hebrew Trades from 1910-1914 to provide protection for workers and to ensure that the rights of Jewish workers were upheld. While the workers would parade or strike for better working conditions, Dopey Benny’s crew would ensure the protesters would not be beaten from the picket lines by the thugs hired by manufacturers. Here were some of the tactics he instilled in his group of gangsters: Raiding and messing up a small plant: $150. Raiding and messing up a large plant: $600. Throwing a manager or foreman down an elevator shaft: $2,000. Breaking a thumb or arm: $200. Knocking out a person of “average importance”: $200. Shooting a man in the leg or severing an ear: $60 to $600 (depending on the prestige of the victim). Dopey Benny would eventually be arrested and tried in 1914, so his reign didn’t last too long but gave way to his successor in Lepke Buchalter and eventually the Gambino family. (Source: Garment District Alliance) I’d prefer not to get got this Stumblin’ Along so we’ll leave out the fact that the Gambino family had control of the Garment District and industry by controlling the trucking through the Master Truckmen of America (MTA) they created.
By the end of 1919, prostitution in the red-light district of Tenderloin was eradicated. What the police and social reformers of the 19th century had failed to do, the garment industry accomplished in short order. By the 1920s, the Garment District was the fastest-growing site of construction in the entire city thanks to the likes of A.E. Lefcourt & Ely Jacques Kahn who started to buy up and build upon the Garment District area. While that was all well and good for The City, New York did not become the world’s capital of fashion until WWII when the Nazis occupied Paris. Facing a wartime Recession and knowing that the garment industry was New York’s largest industry the Mayor at the time, Fiorello LaGuardia, wanted to take advantage of Paris’ demise by promoting New York fashion. The City’s Garment District started stitching on “New York Creation” labels with The City skyline and in 1944 the Fashion Institute of Technology & Design was created as a two-year college. Despite Mayor LaGuardia’s best efforts, the Garment District saw a decline as many workers started moving out to neighboring counties and states. The rise of sportswear became much more prominent after WWII. People started wearing more sweatpants, shorts, and casual T-Shirts, which were cheaper and took less skill to make. Eventually, from a financial aspect, it became much cheaper for American clothing to be manufactured overseas. By 1980, imports accounted for half of all clothing in the country. (Source: The Garment District Alliance)
The Garment Worker Statue was the starting point so we’ll wrap this one up with it. Judith Weller sculpted The Garment Worker as a realistic rendering of a garment worker, wearing a yarmulke, and hunched over a hand-operated sewing machine. Judith Weller’s father, who was a machine operator in New York’s garment industry, is who inspired the depiction of the sculpture. “When I was a little girl, I recall seeing him at work. I utilized what I know of him as well as my memory in creating the sculpture.” The sculpture was created to commemorate the Jewish garment workers, the backbone of Jewish life in New York at the turn of the century. (Source: Public Art Fund)
Before Stumblin’ Along on Week to Week Notes, I would walk by this sort of statue and maybe find it interesting. Now it’s pretty cool to take a picture of it and learn a bit of history about the Greatest City in the World!
YouTube Rabbithole
U2 - Stick In A Moment You Can’t Get Out Of (US Version)