Push open the door to Stadham Corporation, a modest storefront at the busy intersection of Caton and Frederick avenues in the Carroll neighborhood of Southwest Baltimore, and you’re bound to hear the hum of a sewing machine or the click-clack of someone burrowing through a bin of buttons.

The building is somewhat dilapidated and it’s like digging up a time capsule when you step inside—a little dusty and mysterious, but with so many hidden treasures.

Stadham has lived—and continues to live—many lives. Eddie Weinstein, 51, is now the third generation to work at Stadham. Next month marks 30 years. He’s the one who suggested its current model: retailing and repairing sewing machines. Before that, the business was selling supplies to dry cleaners and laundromats. Now the only part of that industry that remains here are the mini boxes of detergent and fabric softener provisions they stock in laundromat vending machines around the state.

Back in the day, stores like Stadham were abundant around here. Baltimore once housed the second-largest garment industry in the United States—second only to New York City—with powerhouses like London Fog (founded by Israel Myers in 1923) and Henry Sonneborn and Company in the early 20th century. Niche shops that sold fabric, buttons, and sewing machines thrived. It was another time. These days, shops like Stadham are rare and desperately trying to stay relevant.

And so far, they’ve been able to. They’re not just the only place in Maryland where you can buy commercial sewing machines (they also sell directly to customers); they’ve got the experts who can assemble, deliver, and service them. And they’ve got other fundamental items, too.

“We’re the only company in the whole state that sells zippers in bulk,” says Weinstein.

That pride in, well, zippers tells you all you need to know about Stadham. The heart of the business is certainly Weinstein and his merry band of misfits who work with him at the shop, including his mostly retired father, Jerry, 82, and two technicians—one who still makes deliveries. These days when everything is Google searches, online ordering, and chats with bots, having an actual human feels a bit old-fashioned, in the best way possible. (Weinstein walks around with a wireless microphone in his ear and a phone clipped to his belt—he never misses a call.)

“For almost 30 years, Eddie has been my trusted supplier, advisor, and friend,” says Ella Pritsker, creative director and founder of Ella Pritsker Couture. “He’s one of the vital pillars of Baltimore’s garment industry and one of those rare sewing machine doctors who still makes house calls.” She shops for thread, zippers, pins and needles at the store, but it’s also where she buys the heavy-duty commercial equipment she uses for her custom designs. “Eddie either has it or knows how to get it.”

Weinstein grew up in Pikesville—just off Greenspring Avenue—and graduated from Pikesville High School. He’s always liked building stuff and using his hands and worked for a few years as an electrician. Sewing machines don’t feel that much removed from that line of work, so he pivoted to spend his days with his dad in the rickety shop.

“The building is 110 years old—as you can tell,” he says. Only 28 years older, in fact, than Jerry, who married into the business (it was owned by his father-in-law, Albert Rogers, though he was not the original owner).

Originally known as Stadham Supply & Equipment of Maryland, the business was a wholesale distributor to dry cleaners and laundries. Rogers eventually bought the Maryland branch with a partner and Jerry started working for him in 1981. Three years later Rogers died. “It just threw me into the frying pan,” says Jerry. (Now he and his son are the only owners.)

Amy Nadel, a self-described “sewing nerd,” first heard about Stadham from Open Works, a nonprofit community makerspace. “As a life-long sewist, this place is like a visit to a secret world,” she says. “Each sewing machine brought in for repair is welcomed as a familiar old friend and given exactly the tender care she needs to be her absolute best self,” says Nadel. “They did an amazing job with some sad old ladies.”

Stadham sells to the kind of people and places you might expect—home hobbyists, costume makers, Stevenson University’s Fashion Design Program—and some places you might not. Did you know, for example, that NASA uses sewing machines? That includes NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility, a rocket launch site on the Eastern Shore of Virginia, and Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt. They also have a loyal customer who makes huge tents for events, and there’s the Baltimore Ravens, who bring their machines to be serviced at Stadham. (The Ravens have an entire sewing department—led by Ebony Short—which oversees the customization and maintenance of uniforms.)

“You can’t go any day without something that isn’t sewn,” says David Tharp of David’s Repair Service, an independent contractor who works for Stadham but feels like part of the family. “I do repairs. We work together. I sell machines. They sell machines, and it’s like a partnership without being partners.”

Tharp has been around Stadham longer than Weinstein has been alive. What Tharp does is a dying craft, from fixing faulty threaders, needles, and bobbins to clearing out lint and debris, adjusting tension settings, cleaning, and oiling.

“Very few people do repairs, especially like me, because we can go to the customer,” he says. On any given day, he’ll head out 100 miles in any direction from the store. Tharp, who has a Sam Elliott look, with his flowing white hair and mustache, wears a gray shirt stitched with “Dave’s Repair Service” on one side and “David” on the other.

“It’s a fun business,” says Tharp. “You never know what you’re going to get from one day to the next.”

“YOU CAN’T GO ANY DAY WITHOUT SOMETHING THAT ISN’T SEWN.”

You could say sewing machines have always been a part of Tharp’s fabric. Back in the 1960s, his father owned a sewing machine shop in Waverly. His dad enjoyed the sales side, but Tharp hated it, and so, “I got working with the mechanics. I said, ‘This is pretty neat.’” In 1970, he left and joined the Air Force for four years. When he returned, his dad had closed shop, and so Tharp spent almost two decades working for the New York Sewing Machine Exchange down on Eutaw Street, right across from the Hippodrome Theater.

One time he cleaned a vintage sewing machine so well that it sparkled. When he took it back to the customer, she called his boss swearing it wasn’t her machine. He read her the serial number on the ticket, and it matched the one on her machine. “Well, that’s your machine, ma’am,” the boss said. She slammed down the phone.

In all those years, his love of the machine has only grown. He loves the history of the Singer Corporation that began in 1850 when Isaac Merritt Singer, a failed actor and mechanic, built a practical working sewing machine in 11 days. And he loves the challenge. The machines he services run the gamut from relic to brand new. “And this place will fix machines that other places won’t touch.”

They’re able to do that because of the sewing machine boneyard, a point of some pride. “I got over probably 300 parts in the back; I’ll show you,” says Weinstein, walking through a door behind his office. He keeps talking as he weaves through different rooms—past his workshop, a table of artifacts recently unpacked from an antique shop that Weinstein’s mother owned in Ellicott City 35 years ago (they’re for sale), and a few epic cobwebs. Finally, he arrives at a room filled with hundreds of sewing machines packed onto shelves. When a part is needed to fix a sewing machine, they come back here and poach for pieces.

Weinstein explains that this is particularly useful because old parts are sturdier. “Guaranteed your machine is going to work for another 50 years if they have metal gears in them, where the new ones are all plastic, and basically disposable.”

His stash of machines—some given to him by customers who no longer use them, others with major issues not worth repairing—spans many centuries. “There’s  some from the ’70s, not too many in the ’60s in here because the ones from the ’60s last forever,” he says, almost wistfully. There are machines from the early 1900s and even a few Willcox & Gibbs from the late 1800s.

The boneyard makes Weinstein a bit nostalgic. It’s sad reminder of what was—the Industrial Revolution heyday. Yes, business has slowed over the years because of fast fashion and places like Amazon. Still, the front area of the shop is filled with machines that customers have dropped off and are ready to be picked up. Ironically, COVID was good for business, as customers were dusting off old machines from the attic and doing their own sewing. But that has slowed.

“[The work] keeps us busy and pays the bills, but you’re not making a fortune,” says Jerry.

Most easy fixes are under $150. But those easy fixes matter. There’s a handwritten notecard taped to a pegboard over repairman Edwin Giron’s workstation.

Hello! Thank you for taking a look at Betty! She was my aunts quilter & IDK that she ever got shop-service but she screams quite loud & high pitched when pedal to the floor, also not sewing as fast as she use to. Thanks!

He keeps it there as a reminder of the “sentimental value” of what he does. It’s not just a machine but “Betty.” It’s not just a purchase but a family heirloom.

“You feel it inside,” says Giron, who has been fixing sewing machines for over 25 years. “It’s a great feeling.”

He’s been at Stadham for almost a year, working alongside Tharp. His incredibly tidy work area butts up against an old Pepsi machine, and he always has tensions, bobbins, bobbin cases, wood screws, metal screws, and some random “parts both new and old” at the ready.

Giron is originally from El Salvador, where his sister encouraged him to go to a trade school when the family couldn’t afford college. He enrolled in a “training school” and spent two years learning the craft and then started working for a manufacturer company. “It’s something I love,” he says.

It’s that care that keeps bringing customers back. “It’s hard to compete with the Internet,” says Jerry. “But a lot of people come in here with the same story. ‘I’d rather buy local. I’d rather have somebody that I can call on to repair if I have a problem.’”

They also get a lot of people coming in with their “Internet purchased” machines needing help. (He says this kindly.)

“If you sew, you know David and Eddie,” says Jill Andrews, who spent 14 years creating costumes for Baltimore Center Stage before opening her atelier, Jill Andrews Gowns, in 2009. She first met Weinstein when Eddie Dawson, owner of Dawson Tailors and Center Stage’s head tailor, took her to Stadham “a million years ago.”

Most recently they helped her set up two new sewing machines after her previous machines were destroyed when Hampden’s Keswick Castle—which housed her studio—caught on fire in November 2025. Today she’s just browsing.

Besides the sewing machine models—which sit near the front door—there are narrow aisles filled with countless buttons, pin cushions, needles, thimbles, measuring tapes, thread, scissors, zippers, and wooden spools. All the essentials.

“This place is a total time warp,” she says on a hot day in mid-July. She pulls a buckle out of one of the stacked boxes—many of which have the contents of what’s inside glued to the outside for easy perusing. “It was great because at Center Stage, when you needed a buckle…” She holds it up. “I mean, look at this awesome buckle. Isn’t it beautiful?”

“THIS PLACE WILL FIX MACHINES THAT OTHER PLACES WON’T TOUCH…I GOT OVER PROBABLY 300 PARTS IN THE BACK.”

The buttons aren’t the star of Stadham but they certainly add character—boxes upon boxes of buttons fill every inch of one of the store’s aisles. “We’ve got at least 30 years’ worth, but some of those buttons are much older than 30 years,” says Weinstein. “A lot of those go back to probably as old as I am,” he says. (And older.)

Buttons are just a small part of his business, but for Andrews they’re part of the draw. “These are celluloid buttons,” she marvels. “These are like from the 1940s. Incredible! I know this is like a treasure. It is a treasure.”

That’s because so many vintage buttons were lost after the Morton Schenk Co. building (often called the “House of Buttons”) collapsed on March 10, 1998, after “heavy winds and soaking rain compromised its 19th-century cast-iron front and roof,” according to a Baltimore Sun article. (That space now houses the Hippodrome’s parking garage.)

Many of their buttons come from Herman Gresser Supplies in Pikesville. “He used to go around and sell this stuff out of his car before they had catalogs and there was an Internet,” says Weinstein. “He did that for like 40 years—30 years ago.”

When he passed away, his wife sold his button stash to Stadham. Weinstein goes to his desk and pulls out a yellow receipt from the Rochester Button Company on March 28, 1977, sold to Mr. Herman Gresser.

“Let’s see,” he says, reading off the invoice. “Gold button, $6 for a gross of them back then.” (That’s 144 buttons.)

Meanwhile, Andrews is still scavenging. Like a kid in a candy shop. “Old shell buttons…these are the old abalones…akoya shell buttons…” She turns to Weinstein. “Look how cool they are. You know you could put all these on eBay,” she teases him.

If Stadham closes, Weinstein will miss the banter with his customers the most. But, ever the pragmatist, he doesn’t look too far into the future but takes it day-by-day. Still, he’s not naive.

“It’s just me, I am the business,” says Weinstein. “If I’m not here that’s it.”

The thread will eventually run out.