Wendel into Kress

When Manhattan's eccentric spinster Ella Virginia von Echtzel Wendel died in 1931, she left to five charitable institutions the bulk of the $36,000,000 fortune which old John Gottlieb Wendel had founded in the fur trade and grounded in Manhattan. To small Drew University of Madison, N. J. fell the lamed Wendel mansion on 39th Street and Fifth Avenue, with a high-fenced side yard which was maintained exclusively for Spinster Wendel's toothless, asthmatic poodle Tobey. Last week it was learned that Drew University had leased the site of the Wendel mansion for a long term to S. H. Kress & Co. who planned to build a 5-c--10-c--and-25-c- store.

Located in the heart of Manhattan's retail shopping district, a few doors north of Lord & Taylor, Best & Co. and Franklin Simon and across the street from Arnold Constable & Co., the Wendel mansion and grounds were appraised last April at $4,500,000. S. H. Kress & Co. announced that they would replace the gloomy old house with the finest store in their system. But competition will be close at hand. A block up Fifth Avenue is F. W. Woolworth's famed Store No. 1000, opened in 1918 and stocked with quality goods to attract sophisticated Fifth Avenue shoppers.

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