Two new discoveries.

1) A photograph exists of the interior of the shop where Lovecraft culminated his epic hunt through New York, seeking a new affordable suit after his clothes were stolen. The date of the photograph is likely perfect, too.

A trade journal named The Clothier and Furnisher, seemingly in its 1925 volume, which has a long profile article on The Borough Clothiers store in Fulton Street, which was Lovecraft finally bagged his $25 suit. Hathi has a scan of three 1925/26 volumes, but these are on copyright lockdown for another few years and can’t be had even with a VPN.

Finally he seemed to come across just what he wanted—except that the coat only had two buttons. This was at the Borough Clothiers in Fulton Street in Brooklyn. Lovecraft was shrewd in dealing with the salesman: he said that he really wanted only a provisional suit until he could get a better one, therefore implying that he might buy another suit from the place later (not mentioning that it might be more than a year before he did so); the salesman, accordingly, consulted with a superior and showed him a more expensive suit but priced it at only $25. Lovecraft, putting the thing on, found that it “vastly delighted me,” but the absence of the third button gave him pause. He told the salesman to hold the suit while he checked more shops. The salesman told Lovecraft that it was unlikely he could get a better deal anywhere else, and after examinations of several more stores Lovecraft found that this was the case; he went back to Borough Clothiers and bought the suit for $25. (S.T. Joshi, I am Providence).

Perhaps someone with access to the archives of the New York libraries might be able to get a copy of the picture from the paper archives?

2) With some keyboard twiddling I managed to get the actual address from the Google Books copy, in a snippet:

the store operated under the name of The Borough Clothiers, at 463 Fulton Street, Brooklyn, is …

So far as I’m aware, this is the first time that scholars of Lovecraft’s life have known the actual address. A small point, yet it may lead to the emergence of a 1920s photo of the exterior as well as the interior.