Funeral services will be held this afternoon at Temple Emanu-El for S. W. Straus, prominent Jewish banker and philanthropist who died Sunday at the age of 64 after a year’s illness. Known as the founder of the mort-gage real estate bond, the S. W. Straus Company, of which he has been the head since 1886, has financed some of the best known skyscrapers in the country.
The Chrysler, the world’s tallest building, the Chanin Building, the New York Athletic Club, the London Terrace Apartments, the Ziegfield Theatre and the Fiske Building are among the structures financed by Mr. Straus’s bond issue. Although he started his business career in Chicago, Mr. Straus moved to New York in 1915. Since March 1909 when S. W. Straus & Co. floated its first real estate bond to finance a building, it has underwritten more than $1,000,000,000 of construction, not including the great volume of business in mortgages.
In addition to his extensive financial business which included the Straus National Bank and Trust Company, the American Society for Thrift, and the Franklin Trust and Savings Bank, Mr. Straus was prominently identified with a number of Jewish philanthropies, chief among them the Federation for the Support of Jewish Philanthropic Societies, the Jewish Charities of Chicago and the Beth Israel Hospital. In 1927 he was made a chevalier of the Legion of Honor.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
