Samuel Klein founded the discount chain S. Klein before World War II, with the flagship store at Union Square East and East 14th Street, and the business eventually grew as large as 19 stores in the metropolitan area before the inevitable decline. The Union Square flagship closed in 1975 (the space is currently filled by the 1987 Zeckendorf Towers apartment complex).
Two substantial remnants of S. Klein remain, in a doorway on Clinton Street in the Lower East Side marking a former branch, and a giant illuminated sign in Newark, NJ that has never been torn down.
8/19/13