nothin Century-Old Dry Cleaner Closes | New Haven Independent

Century-Old Dry Cleaner Closes

Michael D’Avino.

Green’s Cleaners is no more.

The popular outlet on Grand Avenue near Ferry Street, one of the oldest continuously operating businesses in Fair Haven and the city as a whole, has closed it doors.

The triggering event was the death of Michael D’Avino, the owner of the business since the 1960s. D’Avino died suddenly of a heart attack at the age of 77 on May 17. His nephew, Alfred D’Avino, said the property, which his uncle owned, and D’Avino’s estate are in probate. It’s unlikely the business will continue, he said. (Read his obituary here.)

Alfred D’Avino kept the place open for a month so that people who had garments in the store can retrieve them.

He was the last of the old-timers,” D’Avino said of his uncle, who bought the business from Alfred’s dad back in the 1970s. Alfred D’Avino’s grandfather went into business with the eponymous William Green, who established it in 1912, he said.

Although business had not been so good in recent years, D’Avino said, his uncle held onto to it because he was a consummate people person and the business was his baby.”

He loved talking with everybody. He didn’t care who you were. You came in angry as can be, and by the time you left, he was your best friend, and you went out smiling,” D’Avino said of his uncle.

He was a good man,” said a clothing vendor [he delined to give his name] who has been in business adjacent to Green’s Cleaners for the last 15 or 20 years. I used to go in and borrow hangers from him,” he said. The only cleaners in the neighborhood. A good man. He’s truly going to be missed.”

Vinnie Cusano, who runs the nearby Riverside Laundry on Poplar Street, spoke of a time when businesses such as Green’s were booming concerns. I could tell you stories, how we pretty much ran seven days a week, that’s how busy we were. In the last few years times have changed. People don’t get dressed up any more. It’s mostly casual now. In the old days, Easter and Palm Sunday was a big time of year for us.”

In recent years, Cusano sai,d D’Avino used to call on him to come over and fix the equipment that did the dry cleaning work, directly in back behind the reception counter in the lobby of of the store.

I was constantly fixing that one machine, the steamer,” he said.

His nephew said that from a business point of view, Green’s should have been sold 15 or 20 years ago.

Unless someone buys it outright, [one of] the last cleaners will be gone,” said Frank Alvarado, one of D’Avino’s old friends and a senior area manager for the U.S. Small Business Administration in Connecticut.

D’Avino did not have children, and he was not married to his partner of 30 years, Alfred D’Avino said.

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