NOW

Owner Valeria Kardos emigrated from Budapest with her mother in order to attend the Fashion Institute of Technology on a scholarship. Her grandmother had taught her how to knit and crochet as a child, and she decided to take it up again while at school, later knitting and sewing her own clothes. She once knit a rose colored skirt which her mother praised but said, “You absolutely cannot wear it on the street. The holes are too big.” In search of a lining to match, she had trouble finding the right shade. The only thing she found that worked was a piece of bridal silk. She bought the expensive fabric, made the garment, and wore it to her first interview after graduating. She credits that outfit with getting her the job.

When Valeria left the fashion industry, her husband, a pediatrician, asked how she would fill her time. He encouraged her to open Knitting 321 in 2000. “If it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t have this store,” she commented. Because they lived nearby, her husband would pick her up at the shop at the end of the day and take her out to dinner every night. Though her husband has since passed away, Valeria looks on those times fondly, and feels that the happy memories are now wrapped up in her shop.

THEN

This 5-story brick building is one of two designed by architect Edward Wenz, a prolific German born architect in the late 19th century. In 1890, a newspaper profile in The World praised: “Edward Wenz, the architect at Eighty-fourth Street and Third Avenue, is a modest man, but one of the shining lights in his profession. Many of the handsome uptown residences are a product of his brain.” This is definitely one of those buildings, described in the Real Estate Record as flats with stores, rather than a tenement. That classification was likely due to the intricate detail of the brickwork interspersed by limestone bands, elegant enframements, arched windows, detailed cornice, and a fire escape more akin to a Juliette balcony than an emergency exit.