The Third Avenue site, which the retailer owns, would have covered 38,000 square feet on three floors in a former warehouse.

Under the law, only licensed retailers who have been in business for at least 10 years can hold auctions, and those retailers cannot own the wines they are auctioning.

Many retailers own their A.T.M.'s, but some merely collect a fee from A.T.M.'s in their stores that are owned by others.

Other retailers like Bonwit Teller and B. Altman & Company, both owned by the Hooker Corporation, and Miller & Rhoads of Richmond have also sought bankruptcy protection in recent weeks.

The new retailers could eventually own their stores themselves, receiving a full exemption on property taxes for 12 years.

The 44-year-old retailer owns Davidson's, a woman's clothing store that may be the most successful store on Main Street.

The St. Louis-based retailer owns 180 Caldor and Venture discount stores, and nearly 2,600 specialty and department stores, including Lord & Taylor, the May Company, Robinson's and Hecht's.

The retailer, second in 1989 sales volume behind Sears, also owns the Waldenbooks bookstore chain, Pay Less Drug Stores and other chains.

If a retailer owns one shop, he is sometimes called this.

"Very few retailers own anything but inventory these days and they don't like to keep their cash tied up in real estate," he said.