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Gloria Cartegana is looking for woolen pants. So she's leafing through racks of clothes at the Strawberry store on 42nd Street and Lexington Avenue.
"This is the first place I hit when I need something," says the young secretary, who works in the area. "But I'm not sure I'll see what I want."
No problem. If Ms. Cartegana can't find slacks at Strawberry, she can keep walking west on 42nd Street. Two other stores owned by Strawberry's president, Alan Ades, beckon with more off-price merchandise: Dollar Bill's, at 42nd and Park, and J. Chuckles, at 42nd and Madison.
"You have to understand, he controls that whole 42nd Street corridor," says Bruce Shepard, a real estate consultant who recently cut a "major deal" with Mr. Ades. "With all the transient traffic, he's got one of the best retail markets in the city."
That bustling shopping strip -- one of the few areas in midtown Manhattan where moderate-priced retailers still thrive -- is only a slice of Mr. Ades' portfolio of properties. Over 20 years, he and his partner, Albert Erani, have planted 22 Strawberry shops in the city, besides two Chuckles stores, which are simply Strawberry clones.
Their company, Ridgefield, N.J.-based A&E Stores Inc., also owns a wholesale apparel operation, two other off-price retailers -- Valachi 500 (formerly Simco Shoes) and Manifesto -- as well as several commercial properties, three of them in Manhattan.
All of which should make Mr. Ades a well-known retailing and real estate force here. But he's not. Despite the depth of his holdings, Mr. Ades remains a shadow. A soft-spoken 50-year-old who declines interviews -- he would not comment for this article -- the clearest image of Mr. Ades comes from a Chemical Bank ad that features the bespectacled Strawberry chief with one of the chain's shopping bags.
But Mr. Ades may not...