50 Third Avenue; 50-52 Third Avenue | Block : 556-1 | Lot #26

Description & Building Alterations

This three-story conjoined building was once two separate buildings. Today there are still two separate storefronts. The buildings were likely constructed in the 19th century, but their facades have been given a complete 20th-century makeover. From the late 19th century until sometime in the 1960s, a store called Sig Klein’s Fat Men’s Shop existed in the northern storefront (right). As evidenced by the tax photos, around the 1930s and 40’s Stuyvesant Loan Office was housed in the southern storefront (left). Prominent artists, including photographers Berenice Abbott, Ben Shahn, and Tony Marciante captured images of the Sig Klein’s shop, which had become a cultural landmark by the 1930s.