MILLERTON — The expansion of an international business is having an impact on the village of Millerton, to the tune of 25 new jobs being created. News of ITW’s expansion hit the streets last Thursday, March 31, and had village Trustee Jay Reynolds praising the hard work of the Dutchess County Economic Development Corporation (DCEDC), which helped broker the deal.“This is a bit of a news flash,” he said after learning of the arrangement. “Anytime jobs come to a community, it’s great for the business environment. New jobs are the lifeblood of the community.”ITW stands for Illinois Tool Works, Inc. According to its website, it is a “plastic custom molder for precision and micro precision plastic compounds.” The company has a plant in neighboring Lakeville, Conn. According to a release from DCEDC, ITW has “825 decentralized business units that comprise their international business corporation and are located in 52 countries and employ approximately 60,000 men and women.” It is also on the New York Stock Exchange as ITW.The ITW Deltar division has leased a 25,000-square-foot space at Arnoff Moving and Storage for its operations. Arnoff renovated its facilities in 2005, when it moved its central operations from Lakeville to Millerton. The ITW division that is moving to Millerton, will be producing “seating components for the automotive industry,” according to the release.“Arnoff’s goal has always been to attract industry and jobs to this most northeastern corner of Dutchess County,” stated Mike Arnoff about the arrangement. “This is a win-win situation for ITW, Dutchess County and New York state.”According to Reynolds, Arnoff originally tried courting Skip Barber’s Driving School, but that deal never came to fruition. When Barber decided not to take the space at Arnoff’s, the DCEDC helped negotiate on behalf of ITW, which had been looking for something to rent. Gordon Rutherfurd, director of business for DCEDC, said it worked closely with Elyse Harney Real Estate and Mike Arnoff to pull off the deal.Reynolds said the end result is that Millerton comes out a winner. “It helps all of the businesses because you have people who will go to local places to do shopping, or to eat lunch, it could help any of the service-based businesses,” he said. “And ultimately, anytime you bring more salaries into a community, there’s an opportunity for some of that to be spent in the community, and all of that generates sales tax that comes back to the community to some extent.”Reynolds added that the opportunity for Millerton to provide for a company like ITW was limited, so the fact the deal worked out was worth appreciating.“It’s very special, because the opportunity for drawing something like this is very limited because we don’t have the buildings with this kind of space really,” he said. “We normally can draw smaller businesses because we have smaller facilities, drawing businesses with two to five jobs. But having something larger, like in manufacturing, we don’t have the infrastructure to do something like that and we don’t have the buildings, nor do we have the land to put the buildings on, and the town has a very limited supply of correctly zoned places for a place like this. So we’re very lucky this happened.”Bill Thurston, business manager of ITW Deltar, stated he’s “pleased” about the expansion as well as being able “to provide the opportunity for additional jobs in Dutchess County.”
Latest News
Greg Fricke and James Boehmer, co-owners of Peggy Mercury in Kent, recently launched their first fashion line, “Imaginary Concerts.”
Provided
Fricke and Boehmer are not there to stock their shelves with the same products customers find at standard makeup retailers. They’re there to help customers find what works for them. That usually means asking customers about themselves and learning about their beauty habits, skin, style and the way they like to present themselves. Fricke and Boehmer believe it’s their job to help customers bring out the qualities that suit them and determine what works best for their look.
So much of the Peggy Mercury world is about emboldening people to become more creative, and possibly bolder, versions of themselves. Some of this comes through the store’s creative collaborations with artists, designers and stylists.
It’s part of an ethos that encourages them and their friends to use the shop as a kind of laboratory, trying out new creative experiments without knowing how they might turn out. Whether in fashion, painting, fiber arts or photography, the projects almost always turn out marvelously.
A line of sterling silver charms they sell started as a small project by their friend Nolan Percival. In the beginning, the pieces were for close friends and loved ones. But Boehmer and Fricke encouraged Percival to get a little more serious about the project and create a whole line for the store. Today, it’s one of their top-selling collections.
Classic styles, bold colors, and creative concerts make up the “Imaginary Concerts” line at Peggy Mercury.Provided
“Imaginary Concerts” has the duo taking their own advice.
The project started as a way for Boehmer to connect with his mother, who had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. Taking old concert shirts from his own collection, Boehmer and his mother began cutting out the graphics with the idea that they would make a quilt together. Unfortunately, she died before they could complete the project in 2025. The pieces, which were ready for production, were put on the back burner as Boehmer and Fricke dealt with their loss and the whirlwind of projects that never seemed to cease at Peggy Mercury.
But the harsh winter of 2026 presented an opportunity to take some time and focus on themselves. Part of that meant revisiting and redefining the concert T-shirt project. This time, instead of looking to the warmth and comfort of a quilt, they turned to another passion — fashion.
Taking a page from their own book, they wanted to create something that felt comfortable to them. They took two disparate loves — one rooted in simple preppy style, with clean lines and classic silhouettes, and the other in the nitty gritty worlds of punk rock and pop — and blended them together to create something entirely new. Pulling from the staples of vintage Brooks Brothers and Charvet collections, they applied the graphic elements with bold stitching reminiscent of punk jackets of the ‘70s and ‘80s, but with a much more sophisticated air.
But the remixing isn’t just the pairing of prep and punk. The pieces are not canon. They take liberties with the realities of concert tours, combining one band’s dates with another band’s logos, mixing them all up until the reality is lost and imagination is the only truth.
Shirts from Peggy Mercury’s first fashion line, “Imaginary Concerts,” hang on display.Provided
Adding to the mix is an element of perpetual creativity. Art can be messy, both figuratively and literally, and many of Fricke and Boehmer’s artist friends carry evidence of their work on them at all times. As a nod to these tireless creatives, the duo added haphazard splashes of bright color, giving the line an even more distinctive feel.
For them, “Imaginary Concerts” passes the “Peggy Test.” The mythical Peggy Mercury is a fictional figurehead for the company, a character who thrives on creativity and change. The name, much like the clothing line, is a mixture of interests: Mercury is a planet, a deity and an elusive, transformative element, while Peggy is the wonderfully stylish and boundary-pushing Peggy Guggenheim.
Everything Fricke and Boehmer put in their store has to pass this test: Would Peggy Mercury approve? For their first collection, the answer is a resounding yes.
Peggy Mercury is at 9 Maple St., Unit 2, Kent.
Want more of our stories on Google? Click here to make us a Preferred Source.
