Ghost Signs of NYC: Weber and Heilbroner
Weber and Heilbroner, “furnishers to men who know,” was a chain of men’s clothing stores founded by Milton Weber and Louis Heilbroner in 1902. The two entrepreneurs established their original haberdashery in about 1900 at 920 Third Avenue.
The company expanded rapidly. By 1910, an ad boasted nine Manhattan locations. Its ghost sign remains on the side of the Marbridge Building in Herald Square. Ghost signs historian Walter Grutchfield writes that the Marbridge became available in 1922 when Rogers Peet moved across Sixth Avenue. Weber & Heilbroner opened there in 1923.
The sign reads, “Stein-Bloch Clothes, in the New York Manner.” The River Campus Libraries note that Stein-Bloch “became a leader in the manufacture of high-priced, high-quality clothing. So skilled were the workers and craftsmen at Stein-Bloch that the company was once visited by President Andrew Johnson, formerly a tailor himself, who after his visit always wore clothes bearing the ‘Stein’ name.”
The Margate Building store was one of the last to operate when Weber and Heilbroner went out of business in the late 1970s.
Mastropolo is the author of Ghost Signs 2: Clues to Uptown New York’s Past and Ghost Signs: Clues to Downtown New York’s Past.
