Stanley Feldberg Dies at 79

Stanley Harris Feldberg, who helped build the Zayre discount store chain, died recently in Charleston, S.C. He was 79.

The son and nephew of the two Feldberg brothers who opened their first Bell Hosiery Shop in Hyannis, Mass., in 1929, Stanley Feldberg entered Zayre Corp. in 1949 and was president from 1956 to 1978. He was chairman of the executive board after that and vice chairman at the time the company restructured under its new identity, TJX Cos. Inc. He retired in 1996.

After proliferating nationally as one of the country’s first mass-merchandise discounters, Zayre’s suffered from increasing competition in the mid-1970s, though it was strengthened by its new, 12-store T. J. Maxx division. It also ran two other chains, the Hit or Miss junior-wear off-price chain and Waban, which became BJ’s Wholesale Club.

In October 1988, TJX sold its Zayre Stores division to Ames Department Stores (Rocky Hill, Conn.), another discounter in the Northeast. Ames suffered significant losses with Zayre’s, subsequently closing 74 stores and converting the others to Ames stores. It sold the Zayre shoe division in 1989. Ames declared bankruptcy in 2002 and closed its remaining 327 stores.