S. Klein

S. Klein On The Square, or simply, S. Klein, was a popular priced department store chain based in New York City that is now defunct. The flagship stores (a main building and a women's fashion building) were located along Union Square in Manhattan; this location would combine with the 1920s idiomatic catch phrase "on the square" (meaning "honest and straight-up") to provide the subtitle. S. Klein positioned itself as a step above regional discount stores of its time (Two Guys, Great Eastern Mills), more fashion aware than E. J. Korvette, and a more affordable option compared to traditional department stores like Macy's, or Abraham & Straus. S. Klein stores were full-line department stores, including furniture departments, fur salons, and full service pet departments.

Russian-born Samuel Klein (1886–1942) founded S. Klein in 1905, or around 1912, on the block of Union Square East, between 14th and 15th Streets (in the former Union Square Hotel).

S. Klein started to build new suburban stores in the 1960s but in an unusual way. Instead of being an anchor store in the regional malls being built at the time, S. Klein would often build as an outparcel near, but not connected to the mall itself. Most stores were located in New York and New Jersey in the greater New York City area. S. Klein operated stores as far south as Alexandria, Virginia and at Beltway Plaza in Greenbelt, Maryland.

By the mid-1970s the parent company of S. Klein, Meshulam Riklis' Rapid-American Corp. (also owner of the McCrory Stores dime-store chain), seemed more interested in the real estate the company held than the retail operations (a fate Two Guys would fall to in 1982), and it started to close the stores in clusters. By 1978 the last of the chain's stores would close. The flagship store in Manthattan's Union Square is now the site of the Zeckendorf Towers apartment complex.

...
Wikipedia