George Greenberg

George Greenberg, "the mayor of Clematis Street" and owner of Pioneer Linens, the city's oldest business, died Thursday at his home from a brain tumor. He was 92.

Until the end, he went to work six days a week, actively managing business his father started in 1912 in Lake Worth and that he built into a multi-million dollar enterprise since it moved to 210 Clematis Street in 1930.

Mr. Greenberg often said he had no plans to retire.

"I certainly don't want to sit in a rocking chair," Greenberg, then 83, said in October 1998. "There's no two days that are the same. There's always problems, new challenges. And the way competition is, you have to be very alert and keep coming up with new ideas. It keeps you on your toes." Mr. Greenberg and Pioneer Linens survived the 1928 hurricane, the Great Depression of the 1930s, the flight by Burdines, Woolworths and other major stores to the Palm Beach Mall in the mid-1960s, the rebirth of the street with martini bars and night clubs in the mid-1990s and its struggles of the past few years.

His hallmarks were quality merchandise and customer service. "We cater to the upscale market," he said in 1990. "We're selling expensive merchandise, but Palm Beach County can support a store like this." Mr. Greenberg adapted to the times. He remodeled his store periodically and when sheets and bedding became more popular, he moved them to the front of the store. He began a mail-order business in the '60s to accommodate his seasonal customers and the Pioneer web site begun by his daughter, Penny Murphy, is a profit center.

Mr. Greenberg was born in Lake Worth in 1915 and attended Palm Beach High School before studying business administration at the University of Florida. He then earned a law degree, though he had no plans to be a lawyer. He was a member of the Florida Bar for more than 50 years.

His father, Max Greenberg, had worked in hardware stores in Newark, N.J., and Daytona Beach before moving to Lake Worth to open Pioneer Hardware on Dixie Highway, just south of Lake Avenue.

It carried chicken wire, kerosene lamps, fish hooks, dynamite for clearing land and guns for hunting turkeys - everything a tent-dwelling settler could need.

By 1924, Pioneer Hardware and Furniture was the largest retailer in town, stocking carpet, electric refrigerators and ready-made furniture. The 1928 hurricane destroyed the store, prompting his father to relocate to 210 Clematis St. in West Palm Beach, where the store has been since 1930.

With the start of the Depression, his father skipped the expensive furniture, instead stocking bedspreads and tablecloths.

"People didn't have the money to buy big-ticket items like furniture, so we went into what we call soft goods," Mr. Greenberg said in 1987, as his store celebrated 75 years in business. They gradually replaced the store's carpeting, lamps and dishes with bedding, towels, linens and draperies.

His store was the quintessential specialty shop, carrying an extensive inventory on the limited area of sheets, towels and tablecloths. Pioneer Linens has long boasted of holding Florida's first white sale in the early 1930s and installing the county's first set of step-on automatic doors around 1950.

"I did everything you could do in a retail store," he once said. "We even went to the dock to pick up merchandise."

He joined the Pioneer firm full-time in 1937, after having worked for his father since he was a boy. He took over the store's day-to-day duties after returning in 1945 from four years in the military, and became owner when his father died in 1959.

"I've always felt there's no way we could duplicate this anywhere else," Mr. Greenberg said in 1987. "Our philosophy here is that we have tried to build a more unique type of operation to attract people. As they say, if you build a better mousetrap, people will beat a path to your door." His father helped establish the first Jewish synagogue in Palm Beach County, Temple Beth Israel, in 1923. His bar mitzvah in 1928 was the temple's first.

He was one of the founding members of the Downtown Development Authority in 1967. In 1996, he was named its first Outstanding Downtown Business Leader of the Year. A year earlier, Mayor Nancy Graham dubbed him "the Mayor of Clematis Street." "George has been here through the ups and downs," she said in 2004. "He's not a guy who complains, he's a guy who tries to solve the problem." In 2004, he was given a lifetime achievement award by the national Home Fashion Products Association.

He also was honored in 1980 by the Florida State Employment Service for having the state's highest percentage of older workers. He said he never thought about the ages of his employees until someone pointed it out to him.

"The older workers here are far more dependable than many younger people we've had," he said at the time. "They have a wealth of experience before they even come here - more experience in working out customer problems, more patience and more tact." The Greenbergs are into the fourth generation running the store, with daughter Penny Murphy and grandson Alan Murphy involved. He played tennis regularly even after a heart attack in 1997. "The best thing is to stay active. When I get to old to play tennis, I'll take up golf," he said in 2004.

"But above all," he said, "the best thing is, we survived." He is survived by his daughter, Penny Murphy (Alan Murphy Sr.) and son George Greenberg Jr. A funeral is scheduled for 11 a.m. Monday at Temple Israel, 1901 N. Flagler Drive, West Palm Beach. Donations may be made in his name to the Historical Society of Palm Beach County and the Norton Museum of Art.