His sister Rosita, who also lived in New York City with her husband, Gregorio Kaufman, and their three children, arrived later.

[2] In 1940, they bought from Mr. Manuel Mato Santos a lot with two old houses to build there, at stop 16 of Santurce, a much more sophisticated and complete store than the previous.

They began to limit the number of hours worked and the other merchants imitated them since the bulk of the customers were attracted by the new department store.

The owners of Kleins, the prestigious clothing store in San Juan, decided to leave Puerto Rico.

It featured the first escalators in Puerto Rico, and the interior of the store was designed to offer all kinds of comforts to customers.

Specially constructed shelves had been installed to offer a larger display area, while providing the consumer with the ease of selecting items.

These shelves were painted in shades of green, blue, yellow, and coral, colors that were all refreshing to behold.

The fine grain of this panel, as well as its natural color, created a design that could not be duplicated by human hands.

Ketchum was chosen to design the windows and the color scheme of the store by its officials, since they wanted to offer the Puerto Rican people the most welcoming surroundings possible.

Visitors would have a full view of the entire shopping center from the floor of the New York Department Stores.

The New York Department Stores had been established in Puerto Rico for 32 years up to that point and operated with a capital of over $12 million.

Projections for this year were told by Alberto Kaufman, nephew of the late Salomón Kogan and then vice president of operations, informed that, among other things, they were already planning to expand the Caguas location.

[2] On February 10, 1983, it was reported that at a cost of $5 million, a new 60,000 square foot shopping center would be built that would primarily be anchored by a New York Department Stores, it would be located on the Jose Mercado avenue of Caguas.

With the reopening of the stores, according to Rafael Pérez, then assistant vice president of finance for the NYDS, these would create around 100 new jobs, in addition to the 700 it already had with another 8 branches and a central warehouse that operated in Puerto Nuevo on the Island.

The new stores were purchased at auction in New York City, where Barkers had filed for bankruptcy in January of that year for financial reasons.

New York Department Stores paid approximately $500,000 for their equipment and the leasing rights to the shopping centers where they are located.

The chain at the time had stores in San Juan, Caguas, Santurce, Río Piedras, Bayamón, Guaynabo, Arecibo, and Mayagüez.

[10] On September 8, 1987, it was announced that To-Fitness of Bay Harbour Island near Miami, a health food company, said it would buy New York Department Stores of Puerto Rico for $8.5 million cash and expand the chain in coming years.

It was said that the largest investor in the transaction, other than De Fusco, was Investcorp, an international investment bank with offices in London, New York City and Bahrain, in the Middle East.

[12][13] On May 4, 1994, Melville Corp.'s Marshalls unit agreed to acquire most of Investcorp's New York Department Stores of Puerto Rico Inc., credit-rating companies said the day earlier.

Richard Posner, executive vice president of Credit Exchange in New York, said at the time the agreement in principle between Investcorp and Marshalls, a department store chain, was signed the week before.