Flashback Friday fashions

EVG reader Jason Solarek spotted this on Ninth Street between First Avenue and Second Avenue yesterday. The piece of box on the street reads: "Fashions from S Klein on the Square."



Not sure how this ended up here — given that the last S. Klein closed 41 years ago. Someone cleaning out a closet... or discarding a department store box collection?

S. Klein is well-known to longtime residents. Here's a thumbnail history via Forgotten New York:

Samuel Klein founded the discount chain S. Klein in 1906, with the flagship store at Union Square East and East 14th Street, and the business eventually grew as large as 19 stores in the metropolitan area before the inevitable decline. The Union Square flagship closed in 1975.

The last of the S. Klein stores closed in 1978.



Today, the Zeckendorf Towers and the Food Emporium occupy the former S. Klein space.

Which might explain why so many kids are requesting the long version of "Nights In White Satin"

"Clubgoers and college kids are taking trips back in time -- getting high on hallucinogenic drugs popular in the 1960s and '70s, cops say. The NYPD has begun closely tracking the seizures of designer drugs rarely seen since the hippie era but now being peddled to customers in nightclubs and karaoke bars." (New York Post)