When I was a tween my mother took me for, what I can only assume is, a ritual right of passage for every New York City raised girl entering womanhood: My first bra fitting. No, we didn't go to some well lit mall store where a twenty-something used a pink tape measure, in the privacy of a well lit, spacious fitting room. No. In a four story brick building, (that was new in the 1920s) on the lower east side of manhattan, (or Brooklyn, was it?) we walked up a flight of stairs and enter a 150 square foot studio apartment. It was crammed with the following: two or three square shaped Eastern European women (probably my mother's age but resembling a long ago generation), stacks of small boxes (imagine shoe boxes for ballet slippers) stretching from floor to ceiling, piles of lace, elastic straps and cups of varying sizes. All of this was lit by just one exposed 60-watt bulb.