The discount store S. Klein on the Square opened its doors on Broad Street in Newark in 1924, shortly before Calvin Coolidge won election to the White House. Two years later, famed sculptor Gutzon Borglum could not help but notice the store as he installed his massive Wars of America statue across the street in Military Park.

The six-story-tall sign that welcomed shoppers has stood sentinel over the southern end of Military Park for 89 years. It was the backdrop for dignitaries at the dedication of a President John F. Kennedy bust by Jacques Lipchitz in 1965, and although the store was closed by 1979, construction crews for the then-modern PSE&G glass office tower could clearly see it across the way.

The neon sign on a blue background, which is the last relic of the department store chain founded in 1912, will soon be removed from the long-abandoned building.

In the next few days, the entire site will be demolished to eventually make way for a new office tower for Prudential Insurance.

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“We’re looking at the transformation of 20th century Newark into a 21st century city,” said Rutgers University history professor Clem Price. “But I’m hoping they try to capture the memories of Newark — for the white, brown, black, Jewish, Catholic, Protestant people for whom S. Klein was a way of life, a reason to go downtown.”

Some hoped the iconic sign — which had become a Newark landmark and a decaying reminder of the city’s heyday when it was a shopping destination — would remain a visible part of the city’s legacy. When Prudential was seeking approval for its office towers, the city’s Landmark and Preservation Commission recommended the signage be incorporated into the new building.

Because of its size — nearly 60 feet tall and as wide as the building — that’s not practical, said Bob DeFillippo, spokesman for Prudential.

“We have offered to deliver it to another, more appropriate place in the city,” he said. “We haven’t been given an answer to where that might be, yet. A lot depends on how well it comes down off the building. … We plan to hold onto the sign until a new home can be identified.”

S. Klein was a part of the American fabric from the 1920s through the 1960s. Ethel Mertz, played by Vivian Vance on television’s “I Love Lucy,” used to “paw through the racks” at S. Klein’s. Edith Bunker, played by Jean Stapleton on “All In the Family,” declared it was her favorite store.

And in the Frank Loesser musical “Guys and Dolls,” nightclub chanteuse Miss Adelaide sings: “At Wanamaker’s and Saks and Klein’s/A lesson I’ve been taught/You can’t get alterations/On a dress you haven’t bought.”

“It never tried to be a Macy’s or an Altman’s,” said Howard Davidowitz, chairman of Davidowitz & Associates, a New York-based retail consulting and investment banking firm. “You went to S. Klein to get a good deal on a garment.”

Although it wasn’t high-end, however, S. Klein was more fashion-forward than most of its competitors such as Two Guys or E.J. Korvettes, Davidowitz said.

The chain began as a store run by Sam Klein, a tailor, at Union Square in New York City. “S. Klein on the Square” not only said where it was located, but also suggested it was owned by an honest businessman who offered a square deal.

Klein started with 36 dresses on the racks, according to a 1946 Time magazine profile. The chain quickly grew to 19 stores in the New York metropolitan area, with some as far south as Maryland and Virginia.

By the early 1970s, store ownership had changed hands several times and the chain had fallen on hard times. The Newark store closed in 1976, and has remained vacant and decaying ever since.

Prudential, an insurance giant that has made Newark its home for more than 135 years, is scheduled to build a $444 million, 20-story office tower there and convert the S. Klein site into a small green space and parking lot. It plans to build a second tower on the S. Klein site at some point in the future.

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