PIONEER OF SIXPENNY STORIES.

Taranaki Daily News, 14 June 1919, Page 10

PIONEER OF SIXPENNY STORIES.

DEATH OF THE OWNER OF THE WOOLWORTH BUILDING. ■ New York, April 8. Mr. xTanlc Winfield Woolworth, the well-known merchant, died last night at Glencove, Long Island. Even in the United States, that land of vast fortunes and multi-millionaries, few comemrcial careers can have been mora»remarkable than that of Mr. Woolworth, who has just died in his (37 th year. At the age of 27 he found himself with a modest capital of £6O. He invested the whole of tliiy in a store solely devoted to miscellaneous articles retailed at either sc. or 10c.

It was hard and uphill work to begin with, and, with but a single assistant, young Woolworth put in 10 years of unremitting and often tedious labor. His; energy in due time brought forth a rich reward. A new "sixpenny store" was opened, another, and yet others. There are now about 800 "sc. and 10c." stores in the United States and Canada, and some 60 in Great Britain, all controlled by the Woolworth Corporation.

The central office round which all these cheap, but not small, stores radiate was another of Mr. Woolworth's original ideas. It was his boast that the Woolworth Building in Broadway, New York, was the largest in the world. Of all the many "sky-scrapers/' which first strike the traveller's eye as he approaches New York, the Woolworth Building is the highest. It stands 792 ft. high, and is crowned by an observation tower from which a view of the whole of New York and of the Atlantic Ovean—2s miles distant—can be obtained. The foundations are 120 ft. deep, and are set on solid rock. The building took two and a-half years to erect. With the site it cost £3,000,000, of which £6OOO were spent in the gold on the tower. Sixtythree thousand tony of steel were used in the construction. The building ia as luxurious as it is large. Two floors are used by the Woolworth Corporation, and the rest is occupied by banks, offices;, restaurants, Turkish baths, and swimming baths. It accommodates 10,000 persons# Not a penny for this vast undertaking was raised onmortgage, and it way indeed always <jne of Mr. Woolworth's boasts that he had never borrowed money in the "whole of his business career. The Woolworth Corporation employs a staff of over 25,000, and In the United States and Canada alone had an annual 1 turnover of mors than 13 Maflaons gonads.