Did somebody say downtown Hartford needs a dry cleaners?
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Did somebody say downtown Hartford needs a dry cleaners?
Apparently some of downtown Hartford's apartment landlords, plus a fair number of center-city dwellers and workers who advocated loudly for one in a recent online survey, were unaware that there has been a dry cleaners in the heart of downtown for at least 22 years.
That's how long Modesto Farmiglietti of Tolland has operated his eponymous tailor shop and dry-cleaning “pickup'' depot — both totaling about 600 square feet — inside the Travelers Mini-Mall, fronting on Prospect Street, within the insurer's sprawling corporate office complex. He was based on Park Street before that.
Dry cleaning dropped off at Modesto's most weekdays is returned to customers the following day, Farmiglietti said. Cleaning is done off-site by one of several dry cleaning vendors with whom Modesto's contracts, he said.
Most of his tailoring and dry-cleaning customers work for Travelers or in the corporate complex, Farmiglietti said. A few customers who at one time worked downtown at Travelers, but went to work for other Hartford employers, still rely on his services, he added.
With potentially thousands more clothing pieces finding homes in downtown apartments, Farmiglietti says he's in no hurry to try to capitalize. Although the 78-year-old has no immediate plans to retire, he's not much interested in adding to his workload either.
“I'm not looking for having more business for myself,'' he said. “I've got enough as it is. … I don't want to be the richest man in the cemetery.”
— Gregory Seay
