I BUSINESS
Anything
But
Old Hat
From George Jessel to Coleman Young,
Seymour Wasserman of Henry the Hatter
tops them all.
ELIZABETH APPLEBAUM
Features Editor
S
eymour Wasser-
man stepped off
the train from
New York. The
hot smoke from
the train's wheels hissed
behind him. The sound of
Benny Goodman and his
band blared from a nearby
radio.
Wasserman accidentally
bumped into a tall woman,
her lips painted a bright red
bow. She smirked. "Watch
where you're going, buddy."
Detroit, Wasserman
thought. What a place.
He went outside and hail-
ed a cab. All he had was a
name. "Take me to Henry
the Hatter," he said.
"No problem," the driver
said, setting his meter.
"Which store?"
Wasserman was impress-
ed. Now all he had to do was
convince his wife that
Detroit was not inhabited by
wild Indians.
Henry the Hatter was
practically a landmark by
the time Seymour Wasser-
manpurchased the business.
Established in 1893 by
Detroit native Henry
Komrofsky, Henry the
Hatter first opened on
Gratiot. Komrofsky had
worked for a number of
years as a hatter at the John
C. Hartz store before open-
ing his own shop.
A businessman, Komrof-
sky also was interested in
many aspects of city life.
Following in the footsteps of
his father, a musician and
teacher at the Detroit Con-
servatory of Music, Komrof-
sky played drums at the
Temple Theater. He was a
member of the Detroit school
board and served as boxing
commissioner, Wasserman
recalls. "In short, he was
almost, anything he wanted
to be."
In 1915, Komrofsky hired
was the screen's hottest
siren. Most women led
anything but glamorous
lives, working in factories
for pennies.
Baer stopped in at Henry
the Hatter's to have his pic-
ture taken with Newman as
a favor to his old friend. Out-
side the store, a boy was sell-
ing newspapers for a penny.
The world-famous boxer
tossed a dollar to the boy,
who was left speechless.
"Who's the greatest
fighter in the world?" called
Baer as he put his wallet in
his breast pocket.
"Jack Dempsey," the boy
answered.
Not bothering to say a
word, Baer bent down and
snatched the dollar out of
the boy's hand.
Another customer was
Wilbur Brucker, President
Dwight Eisenhower's secre-
tary of war.
Several weeks before
Eisenhower's inauguration,
Brucker called from
Washington and said he
needed a silk hat for the
grand occasion.
"But a silk hat you'll wear
only once!" Wasserman said.
He advised that Brucker buy
an elegant Hamburg, which
he assured Brucker he would
be able to wear for many im-
portant events.
Brucker listened carefully,
then decided to purchase
both hats.
Eisenhower's predecessor,
Henry Truman, was popular
with hat store owners,
Wasserman says. Seeing the
nation's leader dressed more
often than not with a hat,
U.S. citizens wanted to do
the same. But when John
Kennedy — who was seen in
hats only on a few occasions
— came into office, business
went down, Wasserman
says.
Public figures continue to
influence hat sales today,
Wasserman says. When
Raiders of the Lost Ark
became all the rage, every-
one wanted Indiana Jones'
wool felt hat with the
turned-down brim. Eddie
Murphy's fur cap in Coming
to America also sparked
sales. And the name of rap
star LLCoo1J, never seen
without his black cap, is
music to the ears of any hat
salesman, Wasserman says.
Wasserman is often asked
if he sold a hat to Al Capone.
He never did, but past
customers include a Purple
Gang member, comedians
Eddie Cantor and Georgie
Jessel, baseball great Hank
Greenberg and boxer Joe
Louis, whom Wasserman
met in the service.
"That Joe Louis," he says.
,
Seymour Wasserman: 'Take me to Henry the Hatter.'
a young salesman, Gustav
Newman. The two would
eventually run the store
together. A hat maker by
trade, Newman settled in
1908 in Detroit. Not long
after he came to the store,
Henry the Hatter moved to
the Library Park Hotel
building at Gratiot and
Library streets.
Henry the Hatter
expanded in 1923 with a
branch on Michigan Avenue.
By 1940, Henry Komrofsky
was president of Henry the
Hatter.
When Komrofsky died in
1941, Newman continued to
run the men's hat store. But
by -the late 1940s, he was
ready to retire and put the
business up for sale.
The buyer was Seymour
Wasserman. A native New
Yorker, Wasserman bought
his first hat store in
Yorkville, N.Y., after he
completed college in 1937.
He had a little help from an
uncle, he says. "Those days,
everybody had one rich
uncle in the hat business."
Wasserman's business was
hats, but his day was filled
with much more than just
caps and berets. The FBI
once used his store for a
stake out, Wasserman
recalls. They rigged up
mirrors all around and wat-
ched their target day and
night. One Saturday night,
they moved in for the cap-
ture. Not long after,
Glenn Triest
Wasserman received a letter
of thanks from the FBI:
After serving in the U.S.
armed forces during World
War II, Wasserman set out
to find a new business. His
friend, Murray Appleby,
heard that the hat store was
for sale.
Although the store
"operated like something
out of the last century,"
Wasserman says he and Ap-
pleby decided it was too good
a deal to pass. They bought
the store and resettled their
families, despite Wasser-
man's wife's concerns that
Detroit was not
sophisticated.
Any concerns Wasserman
and Appleby had about buy-
ing Henry the Hatter quick-
ly disappeared. They sold
hats by the hundreds and
soon discovered a regular
clientele.
The store's first owner,
Henry Komrofsky, and his
friend Gus Newman also had
established a clientele that
stayed with the store long
after Wasserman and Ap-
pleby purchased it.
One of Newman's pals was
the fighter. Max Baer, a
steady customer at Henry
the Hatter. A large picture
of Baer still hangs on the
walls of the store. Wasser-
man will never forget what
happened just before that
picture was taken.
It was 1934 and the world
was at war. Rita Hayworth
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS