Five years ago, Jennifer Stein she said was worried that the legacy of her family — and that of other small business owners who used to popular the stretch of Wilmington’s North Fourth Street known as Furniture Row — would be lost to history.
But after a well-attended and occasionally emotional unveiling of a historic marker on North Fourth Street Wednesday, Aug. 27, paying tribute to Furniture Row, it would seem the contributions of the Stein family and other business owners won’t be forgotten any time soon.
Speaking to the assembled throng before the unveiling, Jennifer’s father, Steve Stein, whose family ran G. Stein Furniture Co. on North Fourth Street over the course of three generations and some 86 years, said Furniture Row “helped shape the economic and cultural fabric of Wilmington.”
Now known as the Brooklyn Arts District, home to multiple breweries, restaurants, and the Brooklyn Arts Center event space and concert venue, North Fourth Street was one of Wilmington’s main commercial hubs for most of the 20th century.
A crowd gathers for the unveiling for a historic marker honoring Wilmington’s Furniture Row on North Fourth Street, Aug. 27, 2025. The marker is next to the restored headquarters of the WMPO in a building that used to be Sellers Furniture.
The historic marker stands between the bus station and the new headquarters of the Wilmington Urban Area Metropolitan Planning Organization, or WMPO, which is located in a restored building that used to host Sellers Furniture as well as a grocery store and other businesses.
The building used to be owned by the Stein family, whose G. Stein Furniture was located at Fourth and Campbell streets in a structure that no longer exists. The current WMPO building was later purchased by the North Carolina Department of Transportation to be used for the Wilmington Multi-Modal Transportation Center, with ownership later transferred to the city of Wilmington.
Speaking before the unveiling, Wilmington Mayor Bill Saffo recalled when his family had a restaurant down the street at Fourth and Red Cross streets.
“A lot of commerce took place on this particular street,” Saffo said, adding the marker celebrates the “resilience” of small business owners. “It was about more than furniture. It was about families working side by side … as friendly competitors.”
An informational plaque was unveiled on North Fourth Street’s “Furniture Row” in Wilmington Aug. 27, 2025.
Wilmington City Councilman Luke Waddell, who is the vice-chair of the WMPO, noted that the building “could’ve been forgotten or left behind. Instead, it was restored” in a way that honors the area’s history.
At the height of Furniture Row, G. Stein Furniture Co. was one of nine furniture stores on North Fourth, many if not most of them owned by Jewish merchants.
Steve Stein recalled when there were hardware stores and bakeries on North Fourth and furniture stores were “where neighbors caught up, where kids got their first jobs.”
From left, Andy Mitwol, Jennifer Stein, Wilmington Mayor Bill Saffo and Wilmington City Councilman Luke Waddell at the unveiling of a historic marker for Furniture Row in Wilmington Aug. 27, 2025, on North Fourth Street,
Andy Mitwol, who said he’s a fourth-generation Wilmingtonian, told the story of how his great-grandfather Schwartz immigrated from Poland in 1909. Meaning to go to Winston-Salem, he wound up in Wilmington instead.
He eventually opened L. Schwartz furniture on North Fourth Street, when Mitwol said entire back yards behind stores were filled with carts and buggies for delivering furniture. Schwartz’s son, B.D. Schwartz, Mitwol’s great uncle, would go on to become mayor of Wilmington in the 1970s and serve in the North Carolina General Assembly.
Streetcars ran down North Fourth back in the day, and furniture stores would stay open late on Saturday nights since the blue laws of the day meant they had to be closed on Sundays, Mitwol said.
Wilmington’s Furniture Row circa 1950, showing the old iron bridge over the railroad tracks on North Fourth Street, along with Southern Furniture Co., Williams Furniture Co. and G. Stein Furniture Co.
Jennifer Stein teared up a little when she talked about growing up in the furniture store, “climbing on rolls of linoleum and helping my grandfather put together furniture.”
She’d eat lunch down the street at Mike’s Grill, and got a little starstruck when CBS TV series “American Gothic” filmed at G. Stein in the mid-1990s.
She said her grandfather would invariably greet customers the same way: “How y’all doing? Take a look around and let us know if you need anything, no pressure.”
Worried the history would be forgotten, Stein said, she began working with Mitwol and others five years ago to make sure the legacies of the Furniture Row families would be honored for posterity.
“I never imagined five years ago I’d be standing here today,” Stein said, adding she was upset when the old store was torn down years ago, but her father comforted her by saying, “It’s OK, it’s progress. It’s a good thing.’
“As it turns out, progress can be pretty good.”
This article originally appeared on Wilmington StarNews: Historical marker unveiled in Wilmington, NC, on ‘Furniture Row’