One ran across the street and stood outside the tailors' store.
The business flourished, and by 1925 was the largest chain of tailoring stores in the world.
These included a kosher pizza parlor, several specialty grocery stores, beauty shops, a discount party store, real estate agencies, clothing boutiques, gift shops, jewelers, a carpet store, a tailor shop and a barbershop.
But yesterday, Mr. Avulov, 40, stood in the cold across the street from the charred remains of his store, Michael's Tailor Shop on East 70th Street, and shook his head.
The chain had always assumed that it should tailor its stores to frequent customers who were buying shampoo, Advil and other front-of-store, or nonprescription, items.
Mr. Rubinfeld said Starbucks would begin to tailor new stores to specific neighborhoods.
Lost jobs in factories, tailor shops, stores and restaurants in other parts of the city have brought the Hispanic women to Williamsburg: a lot of them, like the Polish women, are illegal immigrants and therefore not eligible for unemployment benefits.
"I started Tomboy Tailors after years of dealing with ill-fitting suits and poor customer service and I knew that other people must be having that experience," said Zel Anders, the founder and owner of Tomboy Tailors, whose store opened in February just off Market Street in downtown San Francisco.
With the success of this Peace Corps-driven project, the tailors are regularly short on supplies, which are only found in the capital city -- an eight-hour round trip -- so Nicole and Mohamed are helping open a tailoring supply store to continue the wonderful work the group is doing providing for the greater community.
Spread out over 400 acres, the jail has its own schools, infirmary, power plant, auto shop (with carwash), chapels, commissary stores, barbershops, bakery, tailor, print shop, and athletic fields and gyms.
