Hyman Moscot (above). (Top right) The Moscot store on Orchard and Delancey Streets in 1950. (Bottom right) The Moscot store on Orchard Street today.
NEW YORK—In today’s disposable mindset economy, a business that survives for five or 10 years has a lot to celebrate. A business that not only survives but continues to grow and thrive? Now they need to throw one doozy of a party.

Marking its 100th year of business this year, New York City’s Moscot has some serious celebrating planned but in true family business style they refuse to commemorate their present without honoring their past.

While now a global eyewear brand, Moscot remains, in their words, a neighborhood optical shop. Moscot’s story in the U.S. starts with Hyman Moscot, who came through Ellis Island in 1899 from Eastern Europe, and began selling ready-made eyeglasses from a pushcart on Manhattan’s Orchard Street in 1915. He opened the family’s first retail shop not too far away from that pushcart’s location and a century later Moscot still has a location in NYC’s Lower East Side.

“Our roots are deep here. I’ve always felt strongly that being on the street where the pushcart was, offered an emotional connection,” said Harvey Moscot, OD, president and the fourth generation of the family to run the business.

Today, that location has been joined by three other shops, two more in New York and one in South Korea; a timeless wholesale eyewear collection; and a philanthropic mission through their Moscot Mobileyes Foundation, all of which will play a role in the year-long birthday celebration.

“Our brand has evolved but at the same time we sort of don’t,” added Zachary Moscot, affectionately referred to as 5G by his father, chief eyewear designer and the fifth generation Moscot to join the business. “We are staying true to what we have always represented in the neighborhood.”

“There have been a lot of changes in this neighborhood,” continued Harvey. “It is just what happens in New York, these kinds of transitions in neighborhoods. For us, the brand has evolved and what we are finding is that this new generation really appreciates the authenticity of the brand.

“And we always try to think about that, we’re thankful that we have a young generation of folks now that appreciate this old business that we’ve got. I always think that maybe because everything is so virtual in today’s world that wouldn’t be the case but young people gravitate toward real things that have stood the test of time. This is something that started on a pushcart and that continues to this day, and fortunately this new Millennial generation has appreciated it as well as the old folks that still come.”

Zack, a Millennial himself, explained how this “old business” remains modern. “We’ve been a retail shop, a real retail shop, for 100 years, so we’re building a new website now and we’re incorporating that fact into the new site. It’s going to reflect the experience of being in a real shop, rather than just selecting a product and finding your way to check out. We’re going to incorporate all the processes and memories you would fine when you come into a Moscot shop. The things you look at, how one of our employees approaches you and talks about the right frame for you and how it should fit and things like that, so we will incorporate all of these elements.”

“All of the Moscots, for five generations, have been steeped in the optical industry, and until Zack you were not able to enter Moscot unless you were an optician or an optometrist—that was always a requirement,” said Harvey.

“I went to design school. The business was always in my sights,” explained Zack. “It was always on the forefront but there was definitely less pressure for me. I think that’s just the way it is in family businesses, generationally, over time. I knew I wanted to get involved and I saw a different opportunity in how I could help grow the business through product.”

(Clockwise from top left) The Moscot Edition Smart Fortwo car. Harvey (l) and Zack Moscot in the Orchard Street store. The Moscot Lemtosh Smart with Drive Package sunclips.
Though Harvey and Zack are the only two “Moscots” still actively involved in the business, that doesn’t mean they are the only family involved. “We have two employees that have been here 40 years, that worked with my grandfather. They are family. We try to take those values of a family business and still have them in play today with all our employees. We now consider everybody family members.”

And out of necessity it has become a larger family due to a worldwide wholesale business. “We started making frames ourselves in the 80s, early 90s to be sold in our shop,” said Harvey. “There was a demand for us to sell our frames in other parts of the world because people visited us here, so it just sort of evolved. My brother, Kenny (who passed away in 2010) spearheaded it at that time and decided to start telling our story to the world once he saw there was interest in what we had always been selling in our shops.

“We started our wholesale collection about 2000, 2001 and by 2005, we had signed our first distributor. It really wasn’t a big part of our business but it just got bigger. Now, we have about 12 distributors throughout the world but we purposely keep it carefully curated and small.

“Retail or wholesale, you’re still selling frames. It’s just a different audience, a much more sophisticated audience. I go to trade shows and stand behind the counter just like I do in the store on Saturdays, which I grew up doing. There is really no difference. The questions are just a little more interesting and more specific than an end user retail customer,” Harvey said.

“We never dropped the ball on our customers who are so important to us, the end user. We slowly made the transition and took our time and made decisions we felt were right,” added Zack.

“And customer service doesn’t change,” continued Harvey. “Moscot has always been about customer service. My grandfather Sol was a customer service ambassador. There has always been a strong emphasis on customer service and making the experience memorable. So even in wholesale today, customer service is important. All of these things we do for the retail customer, we do the same in wholesale.”

No doubt, it’s that kind of focus on the customer, no matter which side of the business, which has contributed to the century long success they fete this year.

The anniversary celebrations kicked off in January with a Friends & Family party and the introduction of their Moscot 100 Year Anniversary Collection featuring three new Special Edition Lemtosh styles; the Lemtosh Wood, Lemtosh Fold and Lemtosh Smart. What soon followed was another celebratory event in Milan during Mido where they unveiled the Limited Edition Smart Fortwo Edition Moscot car in partnership with Daimler AG.

In May, the fun really begins with the “100 Days of Hyman” Instagram contest when U.S. participants could have the chance to win one of those special, limited edition cars. While, in October, Moscot Music will present a special concert to benefit The Mobileyes Foundation (www.moscotmobileyes.org), where donations will earn contributors a ticket to the show and another chance to win a Moscot edition car.

Moscot will be releasing more details on their upcoming events throughout the year but it’s clear that this centenarian has no plans to retire soon. “We would love to expand our retail presence in our markets that appreciate Moscot. That’s definitely a goal for us because the story is evolving and we’d like to continue to tell it. And continue doing what we’re doing and do it from the heart,” concluded Harvey.