South Pole at 44-04 Queens Blvd. (Photo: Nathaly Pesantez)
Aug. 22, 2018 By Nathaly Pesantez
A large bargain store that has been in the neighborhood for decades is closing up shop.
South Pole, the clothing, food, and goods store at 44-04 Queens Blvd., is preparing to shut down operations, with a large sign outside noting a 25 percent to 50 percent discount on all items.
The store’s manager told the Sunnyside Post that one of the business owners, Paul Grossfeld, called for the signs to go up outside the store this morning. He did not provide information to the manager about when the store is closing or why.
Attempts to reach Grossfeld via telephone were unsuccessful. An e-mail sent to the business was not immediately returned.
It is not clear if the property, which includes a mental health consultation center at the second floor, is in the process of being sold. A manager at the consultation center, however, said the offices will not be closing up, to her knowledge.
Erwin Weiss, the building’s landlord, was unable to be reached via telephone.
South Pole first opened its doors in Sunnyside several decades ago, when the prior Robert Hall clothing store closed in the late 1970s. South Pole is under a corporation called Commodities Assistance, based out in Hicksville.
A photo showing the business in the 1980s. (NYC Municipal Archive)
The family-owned company was founded in the 1960s by Jerry Grossfeld, and specializes in “merchandise recovery” by way of insurance losses, transportation losses, and bankruptcies, according to its website.
Grossfeld died in early 2017 at age 78 of cancer, according to his obituary. He and the company, which he ran with his sons, Paul and Daniel, were profiled in a 2005 New York Times piece when he was 59 years old.
Grossfeld told the Times that his sales in the closeout and liquidation business exceed $10 million annually, and that his warehouse is filled to the brim with virtually every product imaginable.
“Whatever it takes to make a buck,” Grossfeld told the paper.
Apart from South Pole, Grossfeld ran North Pole in Corona, a similar business which closed about two months ago, a neighboring business in the area said.
Update 8/23 10 a.m. – Article updated with information on South Pole’s opening in Sunnyside.
