An Obituary For An Extraordinary Ordinary Man

Cesar Quirumbay, who succumbed to Covid-19 on Monday morning at the age of 60, touched the lives of some of America’s most prominent actors, billionaires and businessmen. Yet very few people blessed by his touch ever knew his name. For the past 20 years, Mr. Quirumbay worked at the New York tailoring shop owned by Leonard Logsdail, a London transplant who has made custom suits for people willing and able to pay $8,000 for a handmade jacket and pair of trousers since 1991. Mr. Logsdail’s midtown shop is a leisurely place, with leather club chairs and stacks of magazines and soft fabrics arranged in gentle disarray. In the back, Mr. Quirumbay — I knew him only as Cesar — worked tirelessly, sewing and measuring and pressing, rarely speaking and never complaining about the heat of the iron or the coolness of some of the shop’s more demanding customers. He put the finishing touches on suits for Al Pacino, Leonardo DiCaprio, David Koch, Larry Kudlow and countless managing directors, doctors and dandies. It was Mr. Quirumbay’s hands that were the last to touch each garment that left Logsdail’s. Read more at The New York Times.