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Townsend Leather “On Pause” starting Monday

TOWNSEND LEATHER WILL BE CLOSED STARTING MARCH 23
​Following mandate guidelines, regarding stopping the spread of COVID19, from New York State Governor, Townsend Leather will be fully shut down starting Monday, March 23 for a period of time yet-unknown, due to the fluidity of the situation.  

For the health and safety of our partners and all New York State residents, we will be participating proudly to follow the state guidelines and helping to “PAUSE” the spread of this virus.  

We will be anxiously awaiting a return to normalcy and are taking painstaking efforts to prepare ourselves for a quick return to high efficiency.  Being the manufacturer ourselves, and with stock on our shelves, and love for leather in our hearts – the moment we resume work, we will be at full speed!  So, we encourage all customers to continue submitting Sample Request or New Customers to complete registration forms.  We will ship requests when we resume and will respond to submissions and communications as soon as we are able.  

We will stay connected and communicate as often as we can with any updates or changes.  You can stay connected to us via Facebook, www.facebook.com/TownsendLeatherCompany

 

 

Resilience. It is what we hope for, it is what we work toward.
Together. It is what we are, even if not physically.

Physical presence does not define us, 6 feet, 6 miles, 6 continents… we are united through, actions, words, support… we are together. We are in this together, we will get through this together.

We are awed by the examples of resilience, of team, of care, of community that have been on display through this time of uncertainty and rapid changes… the local Regional Animal Shelter working to provide dog food to those in need, the highly-connected people – working to pass accurate and informed information to all, the vast and varied healthcare network tirelessly working for all of us, the individuals taking a moment to look each other in the eye and listen to concerns and fears…Now more than ever, we are proud to be crafted in the Glove Cities, we are proud to be Townsend Partners, we are proud to be together.

Townsend Leather is dedicated to putting the well-being of our Partners first. We are utilizing our resources and network to stay informed and take action. The future is undetermined, which is unsettling, but also means there is endless space for hope.
We hold to hope. We hold to hope in each other and in knowing, together we will get through this.

We are not defined by proximity, by the work we do, by the danger we face… we are defined by the values we display in times of strife. We aim, to be defined, by being Partners, together. 
And we sincerely thank you for joining us in partnership during this time. 

– Townsend Leather

 

 

 

 

 

 

We love what we do, who we do it for, and who we do it with – and we love having the opportunity to share all that love.  

 

 

A touch of heart.

At our heart, Townsend is about craft, we are about craftspeople, we are about relationship and community, we are about integrity and quality. 

There’s an element of real passion between our people and the product we make that can’t be manufactured. It develops from being present with the leather, looking at it, inspecting it, touching it, knowing the depth and the history of that piece to make it perfect.

 

TOWNSEND LEATHER ON YOUTUBE:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSf18bi-XfRyDU7cJjiR1aw/featured? 

 

 

This month of love, we are honored to share with you, a touch of our heart.  Everything we do at Townsend requires a team, a team of hands.  Coming together around our collective heart to create something magical.  Of the many reasons to love leather, one of our favorites is the touch.  The feel of the weight as a hide is masterfully thrown out onto a table, the sense of your fingers sliding across the surface connecting with the grain, the touch of elegance it brings to a design, the connection you feel to the hands that crafted it and the hands that loved it. 

While nothing is the same as holding a hide of leather in your hand or being physically present to the wizardry of crating those hides, we hope this brief video brings you a little closer to feeling our passion and what it is like to be part of Townsend Leather, we hope you feel a little touch of heart from us to you, in the things we are so passionate and heart-filled about.  

If it moves you enough to want to get your own hands & touch on the process and be here with us as we craft, let us know!
We are always excited to have visitors. 

And for more Reasons to Love Leather take a gander at our Instagram Stories.

Townsend Leather loves our Glove Cities community and was honored and proud to be awarded the “Edward L. Wilkinson Industry of the Year” earlier this month by the Fulton Montgomery Regional Chamber of Commerce during their annual, “Cheers to Business! — A Celebration of Business, Collaboration, and Progress.” 

Townsend Leather had proud partners in attendance the receive the award, which is given to a local business that displays the ideals, optimism, and hope for the future of our region that were held by economic development leader Edward L. Wilkinson.   

Read more at The Leader Herald: https://www.leaderherald.com/news/community-news/2020/01/area-businesses-and-individuals-honored-at-annual-cheers-to-business-celebration/

 

 

Townsend Leather is fundamentally about leather, but it is the hands that make it and the hands that love it which drives us forward.  That is why we give our 2020 focus to a year centered around, TOUCH.  The Touch of Leather. 

The feel, the softness, the warmth, the nap, the texture, the luxuriousness, the artistry, the beauty . . .  like the expansive span of watercolor, the touch of leather reaches out in all directions, giving us a sense of timelessness and connection while invigorating all of our senses and emotions.

 

 

Townsend Leather’s 2019 was spent Stitching Together our past, our future, our history, & our dreams.  With huge moments like the celebration of our 50th Anniversary and the Grand Opening of our newest building, The Stitch.  It was a year of epic proportions in Townsend storied history.  The most commonly repeated element, as is always with Townsend Leather, is the connection and love of people.  People, hands, connection – coming together with hard-times-hugs and celebration-high-fives, coming together to create beauty and rest in luxury.

We celebrated Townsend’s history of 50 years and spent time dreaming about the future.  The common thread is always people, craft, leather… touch.  2020 is a focused return to the core of Townsend Leather – the touch of leather.  Nature’s textile.  

We manufacture leather.  Leather demands to be touched.  And when it is, it sparks a sense of earth, connection, luxury, beauty, timelessness. 

This year will continue to be a celebration, a celebration of this wonder-material of leather and the way it draws your hand to it, the way it calls out to be touched, the way it touches your heart.  A celebration of the hands that craft it and the hands that love it.  

Our theme of The Touch of Leather kicks in, right at the turn of the year, by starting our year off with our annual calendar gift.  This year giving focus to action and the touch of your words on the page… a notebook with ample space for your dreams, goals, messages of thanks, and notes.  

Please contact us, if you have not received your very own 2020 Touch of Leather Notebook/Calendar from Townsend Leather, email us at info@townsendleather.com so we can get one into your hands.  

And we have an additional gift for all you active-notebook-users out there, you know who you are ;) – page organizational stickers!

Contact us for your own free sheets of Townsend-centric page-marking STICKERS and more! 

Mark your important pages with page flags!

Mark important dates with calendar callouts!

This year will be full of touching surprises, beautiful leathers, and opportunities for us to connect.  

Let us know what you want to get your hands on!

Want to show off your Townsend fandom?  Or express your colorful love of leather? 
Get your own Townsend Leather designed designer tee’s at:

https://www.townsendleathershirts.com/

The above link brings you right to a storefront for Amazon where you can place orders for your favorite color and size in any of the Townsend designs. 

TOWNSEND LEATHER

Visit Us:
4 Grove Street
Johnstown, NY 12095

Mail Us:
P.O Box 669
Johnstown, NY 12095

Ship to Us:
45-49 Townsend Ave
Johnstown, NY 12095

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www.instagram.com/townsendleather

Facebook
www.facebook.com/townsendleathercompany

Twitter
www.twitter.com/townsendleather

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Townsend Leather

In what has become a tradition now, we present our 2019 at Townsend Leather in Blurview.  A rush of moments and memories captured on film. 

2019 was a historic year for Townsend Leather and this video showcases only a brief bit of the moments, memories, and meaning of our year.  We celebrated unprecedented milestones together in 2019.  It was our 50th year making leather;

https://townsendleather.com/the-townsend-story/50years

We expanded and opened our newest building, The Stitch;

The Stitch

We introduced beautiful new leathers;

https://townsendleather.com/leather/samples/product-lines/category/New!/

We were honored, yet again, as a Top Work Place and a Best Place to Work, celebrated many Partner milestones, said a sudden goodbye to an icon of Townsend Leather, Louise Kucel, and had countless other moments of love, laughter, and life.  

We even took a moment to make our own music video! 

Summer of 69

2019 was epic.  It was full.  It was a blur.  But we are glad to have experienced it together.  

 

 

“Townsend is growing, expanding, taking on new challenges, all while still giving glorious attention to our current needs.  We are anxiously watching the development of our newest building…

We lovingly call it, The Stitch.”

50 years is an incredible milestone and truly deserving of celebration.

This year holds one of the most significant moments in Townsend’s history, with a growth beyond the boundaries of Townsend Ave.  Down the street and around the corner, we now have a new building to call home as well, The Stitch. 

Well over 100 years old, The Diana Knitting Mill building was an icon of Johnstown for years. As Townsend continued to grow in the past 50 years, it was clear we were running out of space.  Even though the old Diana Knitting Mill had been abandoned and left vacant for nearly 20 years, when Tim, Jared, Sarah, Tricia, Jeff, and Shawn stepped inside to dream about the future – they were able to see through the vast amount of restorative work needed, and see a vision for a way forward.  The 6 of them had searched numerous other sites for 2 years, before they came across The Diana Knitting Mill.  It wasn’t until this building, the history and stories contained within it, that they fell in love with it together and made a plan forward.  Under the ever-watchful eye and guidance of Tim, the building has undergone 2 years of restoration.  Staying as true to the original form and materials of the building’s origins as possible.  We now lovingly call this building, The Stitch.  As a symbol of our collective stitching together of history and dreams, and future and past. 

With the additional space this building brought to Townsend, in 2019 we were able to move Sorting, Customer Service, Sales, Marketing, HR, and Accounting out of the way, to expand our production capabilities on Townsend Ave., while still remaining just around the corner, giving greater capacity and efficiency to our core production processes still located on Townsend Avenue.  

We started the process of converting the 100+-year-old local building to useable space, back in 2017.  We scouted locations, weighed pros and cons, and then “broke ground” on a new venture. But it was not until 2019 that visible work on the building could be seen.  

Under the careful and thoughtful direction of Tim Beckett, we restored the building that was once known as the Diana Knitting Mill, a manufacturer of various items throughout the years like clothing and underwear.  It, unfortunately, was left vacant and in disarray for years.  But Townsend has brought it back to life.  

Everything was carefully restored to historical site guidelines.  We even used reclaimed doors, wall tiles, sinks… we are keeping and reusing as much of the building as possible and where we have to get something new, we are buying used first and environmentally friendly next.  

The building, the restoration process, and the move into it has been a process of love and care.  We call it the stitch because of its history of stitching and knitting, and because of its ability to stitch our past and our future together. 

We even took a moment one sunny day, to string ourselves along the path from our oldest of buildings to our newest, passing a hide hand to hand, to celebrate the first moment we all got to enter the building together. 

Stitching together our past, our future, our hopes, and our dreams. 

This growth is exciting and has been a big part of our celebrated 50th year, it hold a special place in our collective heart and that love has been equally shared by our incredible Glove Cities local community.  

 

There’s maybe nothing better than celebrating fun times with fun people in unexpected ways, and that is what makes this silly video below, so great.

Townsend Partners took a few minutes at the end of summer this year, to rock out and have fun, in celebration of our founding year, 1969. We gathered as small groups of friends and air guitared, sang along, and blasted “Summer of ‘69” by Bryan Adams.

This was a crowdsourced video of handheld phone cameras across the company capturing fun moments of celebration and good times.  

We love what we do, who we do it for, and who we do it with – and taking a moment to have fun together and celebrate 50 incredible years was a delightful and memorable time.   See more about our 50th

Also, we thought it would be fun to win a sweet guitar for our ever-rockin’ President in this very cool promotion that the shipping company, DHL, is doing.  They are also celebrating their 50th anniversary and have teamed up with Bryan Adams himself! to find some incredible air-guitarers. 

Vote for Townsend’s video here:

https://inmotion.dhl/en/bryan-adams/win-guitar/entry/f4c7abe96168f3468329edbab3a9c4764af33086 

 

 

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