They charge $6 to clean your shirt. They earn 13 cents from it.

There’s an extravaganza of cleanliness to be found just behind an unmarked door in a corner of the Brooklyn Navy Yard.

This is home to Kingbridge’s massive new cleaning facility, which opened in January 2020. A finicky, highly labor-intensive process takes place here, which Mr. Aviles believes is necessary to properly clean clothing.

He learned the trade at age five, when his mother, Victoria – who still helps run the decades-old family business – dressed him in a suit and took him to work on Saturdays. He offered customers hot chocolate in the winter and lemonade in the summer, and soon learned to press shirts himself.

Today, workers pile dirty shirts – undignified with their faded collars, broken buttons and sweat stains – into a huge bin to be manually sorted by color and condition. Then they put them in a huge wet or dry cleaning machine, or clean them by hand if the situation is dire.

Each garment is then inspected to ensure it does not require a second cleaning. If all goes well, workers toss the shirts into a loudly thumping dryer set up next to huge exhaust fans that remove the steam. If the machine detects a risk of shrinkage, it stops itself abruptly and throws open the door to let in cooler air.

An employee and a machine then work together to ensure that the collar of each shirt is ironed and the cuffs are ironed. The machine spins the shirts every few seconds, in a perfectly timed roller. Hot air is blown through the sleeves of the shirt, giving the impression for a few seconds that it has come to life.

Two workers then inspect each garment and use irons hanging from ropes from the ceiling to tackle any remaining wrinkles. Another employee, known as a packer, puts plastic fasteners under the collar to keep it stiff, wraps the shirt around a hanger and then drapes it in a garment bag, which Mr. Aviles hopes customers will continue to hold onto to prevent that dust accumulates.

None of it is cheap.

Professional clothing maintenance was one of the first things that needed to be done when the pandemic hit and most New Yorkers were suddenly confined to their apartments. Almost overnight, Kingbridge Cleaners & Tailors saw its turnover plummet, down 93 per cent on the previous year.

Mr. Aviles did not receive a salary for about two years, when the entire industry essentially shut down. Kingbridge’s sales are still down about 15 percent from 2019, he said, because many office workers spend at least part of the week in sweatshirts instead of suits.

Running a cleaning business in 2023, he said, means that “even if we don’t make any money, if we can break even, we’ll stay ahead.”

He tries to maintain that optimism, even when a customer complains about a stubborn stain and he offers a discount or money back.

He sees cleaners around him going bankrupt by keeping their prices the same for years and losing too much money too quickly. Still, Mr. Aviles has been careful not to raise his prices too much: A washed shirt costs customers about 10 percent more today than before the pandemic.

For Mr. Aviles, it is easy to become wistful about the days when working New Yorkers visited their cleaners once a week or more. He knows that money is tight, and that clothes that are perfectly clean and ironed are not always a top priority. But he wants his neighbors to know that keeping their closets looking fresh is worth it.

“It’s cheaper to maintain your wardrobe and do it the right way,” he said, “than to buy disposable fashion.”

Created by Eden Weingart, Andreas Hinderaker and Dagny Salas. Development continues Gabriel Gianordoli And Aliza Aufrichtig.