Joseph Miller | N.Y. saddlery owner, 93

Joseph Miller, 93, who built his father's humble harness shop in Manhattan into one of the nation's largest suppliers of fashionable saddlery and riding apparel, died June 12 at his home in Manhattan.

Mr. Miller was president and chief executive officer of the Miller Harness Co. from the late 1940s until 1975, when it was sold. By then, its logo - with the LL in Miller in the shape of high English riding boots - was known worldwide in equestrian circles.

It was in 1912 - when horse-drawn wagons and fancy carriages still plied the streets - that Miller's father, Mayer, opened the shop at 123 E. 24th St. Mayer Gostkovsky, as he was known when he arrived in America, had been a master harness-maker in Russia.

Joseph Miller began working at the shop in the mid-1930s. Eventually, under his leadership and with the support of his brother Jack, Miller Harness expanded into a five-floor business.

While selling mainly to adherents of the English style of riding, the Millers also outfitted the cavalries of Venezuela, Colombia, Haiti, and Cuba.

The likes of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Rockefeller family members, and movie stars became customers. And, together with H. Kauffman & Sons, an equally well-known tack shop and horse haberdashery a few doors down, Miller Harness made the block on East 24th Street "the equine epicenter of New York," as the New York Times described it in 1975. - N.Y. Times News Service