The 2nd Generation
This first store was located in Brooklyn, New York, six blocks from a jewelry store owned by their uncle. The brothers displayed jewelry on a board supported by two sugar barrels outside on the sidewalk in front of the store. If a customer requested an item they did not have, they would tell them to wait a minute. One brother would engage the customer in conversation while the other would walk into the store and immediately exit out the back door, run to their uncle's store to get the item, run back again and attempt to make the sale. Before long the two brothers were able to open their own storefront and were quite successful running the store on their own.
By the mid 1920's they opened a second store in Jamaica, Queens, and shortly thereafter moved further out on Long Island to Hempstead where they opened a third store. By the late 60's the business was being run by Howard Gross, the third generation, who was the son of the younger of the two original brothers. At this time they were doing their own diamond cutting in the Hempstead store and averaging a dozen diamond engagement ring sales a day.