NEW YORK — Arrow, the 156-year-old brand whose sales built to $32 million in the early 1900s as immigrants coursed through Ellis Island, is contributing $500,000 to the island’s restoration.
That level of largesse makes it the biggest corporate sponsor of the effort to date — which is still $300 million away from completion — according to Michael I. Kelly, executive vice president of the marketing group at Phillips-Van Heusen, Arrow’s corporate parent.
Representatives of the brand, whose heritage lies in pieces of Americana like fashion illustrator J.C. Leyendecker’s imaginary Arrow Collar Man (who drew fan letters and marriage proposals at the turn of the century), will tell of the gift in a ceremony on April 2 on Ellis Island, alongside Sen. Hillary Clinton (D., N.Y.), former New York Gov. George E. Pataki and former U.S. Senator and New York Knick Bill Bradley. On that day, the island’s ferry terminal, originally opened in 1935, is scheduled to be reopened.
“Forty percent of Americans can trace their heritage through Ellis Island,” Kelly said.
In addition to making the donation, which is being used to restore the ferry terminal on the island’s south side, Arrow will marry archival films of Ellis Island with present-day images of its terminal and hospital buildings and use them in the brand’s fall 2007 ad campaign, online, in-flight and at point of sale. Arrow, whose roots go back to 1851 in Troy, N.Y., still trades on an offer of “authentic American style,” now in a range of men’s, women’s and children’s apparel.