The roster of small jewelry workshops in Manhattan’s diamond district keeps shrinking, but at least one company that’s winding down is preserving the history of its designs. After six decades of making jewelry at various addresses in the West 40s, Henry Dankner & Sons is closing and donating its paperwork and molds to the jewelry design department at the Fashion Institute of Technology.
If not for that gift, the family’s story of escaping the Nazis in Hungary and winning renown in New York for their gold mechanical charms (with moving parts) would be largely forgotten.
