Tender Buttons Closes After 50 Years On UES, Report Says

UPPER EAST SIDE, NY — An Upper East Side button store that became a neighborhood institution is closing down after more than 50 years in business on East 62nd Street, according to reports.

The owner and operator of Tender Buttons told the New Yorker that she's in the process of packing up the store's collection of an estimated "a billion and one" buttons to be stored at a facility in Long Island City. Tender Buttons' website reads that the business is "temporarily closed," and offers a glimpse of hope in telling customers to "check our website for future information."

Tender Buttons was founded in 1964 by book editor Diana Epstein and her partner Milicent Safro — who inherited the business after Epstein's death. Safro told the New Yorker that the store's founding was more of an attempt at performance art than entrepreneurship.

Despite the store's performative nature, it did some serious business through the decades. Clients included designers such as Ralph Lauren and Calvin Klein and the many fashion-conscious denizens of the Upper East Side who would come to have their luxury clothes outfitted with custom buttons.

Read the full New Yorker story here.