Steinbach was a

department store A department store is a retail establishment offering a wide range of consumer goods in different areas of the store under one roof, each area ("department") specializing in a product category. In modern major cities, the department store mad ...

chain based in

Asbury Park, New Jersey Asbury Park () is a beachfront city located on the Jersey Shore in Monmouth County in the U.S. state of New Jersey. It is part of the New York metropolitan area. As of the 2020 United States census, the city's population was 15,188, a decr ...

with locations throughout the United States northeast. It opened in 1870 and was purchased by Supermarkets General Corporation (SGC) in the 1960s, and was shuttered in early 1999 after filing for

Chapter 11 Chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code ( Title 11 of the United States Code) permits reorganization under the bankruptcy laws of the United States. Such reorganization, known as Chapter 11 bankruptcy, is available to every business, w ...

Bankruptcy Bankruptcy is a legal process through which people or other entities who cannot repay debts to creditors may seek relief from some or all of their debts. In most jurisdictions, bankruptcy is imposed by a court order, often initiated by the deb ...

History

Steinbach was founded in 1870 by the Steinbach brothers, John, Henry, and Jacob in Long Branch. The brothers expanded to the Asbury location four years later. In the early 20th century, Steinbach's was considered to be the "world's largest department store." The company was at one time affiliated with the Kresge-Newark department store in downtown Newark. In the 1960s, the chain was purchased by Supermarkets General Corporation, and continued to operate as a standalone company. SGC also purchased the Howland chain in Bridgeport, Connecticut (which had previously merged the Genung's chain of stores into itself), along with the two-store Goerke's department store based in

Elizabeth, New Jersey Elizabeth is a City (New Jersey), city in and the county seat of Union County, New Jersey, Union County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey.shopping mall A shopping mall (or simply mall) is a large indoor shopping center, usually Anchor tenant, anchored by department stores. The term ''mall'' originally meant pedestrian zone, a pedestrian promenade with shops along it, but in the late 1960s, i ...

locations along the growing Jersey shore, including the chain's largest, a unit at the

Shore Mall A coast (coastline, shoreline, seashore) is the land next to the sea or the line that forms the boundary between the land and the ocean or a lake. Coasts are influenced by the topography of the surrounding landscape and by aquatic erosion, su ...

near

Atlantic City Atlantic City, sometimes referred to by its initials A.C., is a Jersey Shore seaside resort city in Atlantic County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. Atlantic City comprises the second half of the Atlantic City- Hammonton metropolitan sta ...

. In 1976, a fourth mall location was opened at the Seaview Square Mall, near its downtown Asbury Park store. The Seaview Square location was opened as the chain's most upscale store, and a number of departments were originally not part of the merchandise mix. This changed when the downtown Asbury Park location was closed in 1979, and Seaview Square was modified to include all departments that were carried at the former downtown store. The Asbury Park location burned down in 1989.

Ownership changes

In 1978, SGC merged the two chains together under the corporate name Howland-Steinbach. Each chain retained its original name, but were operated by a single corporate office. SGC sold the chain in June 1986 to Netherlands-based Amcena Corporation, the owners of the

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

-based

Ohrbach's Ohrbach's was a moderate-priced department store with a merchandising focus primarily on clothing and accessories. From its modest start in 1923 until the chain's demise in 1987, Ohrbach's expanded dramatically after World War II, and opened nu ...

chain. In January 1987, Amcena closed five Ohrbach's locations in the New York area, renovated them and opened them as Steinbach stores on March 12, 1987. The parent company also rebranded its 18 Howland stores to the Steinbach nameplate the same day. By 1994, American Retail Group (Amcena) opted to sell the chain which Schottenstein's purchased entirely. In 1995, Detroit based Crowley Milner and Company purchased Steinbach but Schottenstein's retained a few locations that it converted as

Value City Value City Department Stores was an American department store chain with 113 locations. It was founded in 1917 by Ephraim Schottenstein, a travelling salesman in central Ohio. The store was an off-price retailer that sold clothing, jewelry, and ...

stores or sold.

Bankruptcy And Liquidation

In 1999, The chain filed for

under the title

, which was converted into a

Chapter 7 Bankruptcy Chapter 7 of Title 11 U.S. Code is the bankruptcy code that governs the process of liquidation under the bankruptcy laws of the United States. This is in contrast to bankruptcy under Chapter 11 and Chapter 13, which govern the process of ''re ...

Liquidation Liquidation is the process in accounting by which a Company (law), company is brought to an end. The assets and property of the business are redistributed. When a firm has been liquidated, it is sometimes referred to as :wikt:wind up#Noun, w ...

, and the company was liquidated with the rest of Crowley Milner.

Flagship store

Steinbach had been a fixture in Asbury Park since the late 19th century, and by the turn of the 20th century, a new flagship store was planned and built on Cookman Avenue, billed as "The world's largest resort department store." This building initially contained five floors (basement level through fourth floor), and by the 1930s, a fifth floor and clock tower were added. As the Northern sections of the New Jersey shore started to suburbanize, Asbury Park and Steinbach became a focal point. The downtown Steinbach remained popular even after several nearby shopping centers opened, but the race riots during July 1970 cast a shadow over downtown, and shoppers started to avoid the area. Ownership changes also affected Steinbach, and in 1978, Steinbach's then-corporate parent, SGC, opened a new consolidated office building in White Plains, New York to serve as the headquarters for its department store holdings. This cost downtown Asbury Park over 100 jobs, and diminished the role of the downtown building. SGC also refocused Steinbach as a more value-oriented chain. This location, and all future locations, used mahogany wood for all fixtures and showcases. In spring 1979, it was announced that the downtown Steinbach would close after a liquidation sale, with the store's closing on July 14, 1979. The public entrances were padlocked, and the remaining display windows were boarded up. Steinbach continued to use the building as a base for its maintenance staff for a few years, before abandoning the building entirely. In the late 1980s, an arson fire nearly destroyed the entire building, but did result in the removal of the clock tower and fifth floor. Sackman Enterprises, which purchased the building in 2001, announced on March 1, 2007 that the first of 63 apartments was ready for rent following a complete renovation of the building. The ground floor now contains of retail space. The four floors above are loft-style apartments.

References

External links