Commerce Tour: East of Broadway

Sig Klein’s Fat Men’s Shop was opened by Sig Klein the late 1800s, and remained at 50-52 Third Avenue at least through the 1960s.
A May 2, 1931 article in The New Yorker described Klein and the business: “when he started, bartenders and beergarden owners from the bad old Bowery made a good part of his customers … Now over six thousand fat men trade regularly here … from as far away as Germany, Ireland and Cuba.”
Prominent artists, including photographers Berenice Abbott, Ben Shahn, and Tony Marciante captured images of the shop, which had become a cultural landmark by the 1930s.
Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of this and other historic buildings south of Union Square.
.
.
.

Multiple innovators in the field of commerce were located here, once the center of commerce in New York, along with the headquarters of several prominent businesses. Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of these and other historic buildings south of Union Square.