Clothing retailer and Brooklyn native Sy Syms passed away at age 83 from heart failure yesterday in Manhattan. According to the NY Times' obituary, he "pioneered selling off-price clothing and built his retail chain, the Syms Corporation, into a national brand."
Syms was born Seymour Merinsky and, after serving in the army and studying at NYU, he joined the family's clothing business. The Times explains, "Nine years later, he opened a store around the corner that competed directly with his father’s and brother’s establishment. He named it Sy Merns, the name he had taken after the entire family changed its name. His brother sued him, and after Mr. Syms lost the case, he renamed his store Syms, which he eventually adopted as his last name. Syms soon began expanding by focusing on an almost completely untouched marketplace: the mistakes, close-outs and leftovers produced by name-brand clothing companies."
He opened a store on Cortlandt Street, where not just New Yorkers would flock—the Star Ledger spoke to Syms' daughter Marcy, the company's CEO, who said that NJ commuters "could stop in the morning and see something they liked. And they would stop in at night to pick it up. He would often hold things for people."
It was Syms' voice in the company's first commercial that heralded its famous "An educated customer is the best customer" slogan, and there are Syms clothing stores in 30 locations in 13 states. Earlier this year, Syms bought Filene's Basement.
