Sidney Thal, 92, was born in Massachusetts, the son of a Jewish immigrant and socialist labor organizer. Sidney came to Washington with his family in 1916, after Eugene Debs advised his father to move west. Sidney started working at Fox's Gem Shop in downtown Seattle in 1945 (the store had originally opened in 1912), and bought the place in 1949. The store (originally next to the 5th Avenue Theatre, and located since 1979 in the Rainier Square complex at Fifth and Union) was Seattle's premier upscale jewelry boutique--and still is, despite the recent arrival in town of upscale global chain stores (Tiffany, Cartier). At the heart of the store's mystique was Thal's idiosyncratic appearance, with his trademark gray moustache, three-piece suits, bowler hat, and 1954 English taxicab. Local ad man David Stern (the future mayoral candidate who also claimed to have invented the "happy face" symbol) made Thal's visage the centerpiece for a long-running series of newspaper and TV ads. By promoting their one store as heavily as Weisfield's and Ben Bridge promoted their regional chains, Thal and his wife, Berta (who died in 1996), kept Fox's firmly established as the "affordable elegance" store local customers would want to move up to. In 1998, he wrote and self-published his memoir, Loose Gems: Stories About Life, Love, and Business. He was a board member of Seattle Repertory Theatre and Seniors Making Art (a group co-founded by Dale Chihuly), and a past president of Temple De Hirsch Sinai. Thal died May 20 of natural causes at his winter home in Palm Springs, CA.

New Wilson Ford on Leary Way in Ballard closed May 15 after 80 years in business, following the shuttering of Three Sisters Nelson Chevrolet down the street two months before. The Wilson closure had been planned before the Nelson closure. The 2.5-acre Wilson property had been acquired two years ago by a consortium of developers planning a condo-retail project, to incorporate 430 residential units, a ground floor of "loft-like live-work spaces," underground parking, retail storefronts in the former Wilson service garage building, a public water fountain, and a one-block cobblestone pedestrian path from Leary to Ballard Avenue. New Wilson's demise leaves only one Ford franchise within the Seattle city limits, the Bill Pierre Automotive Group in Lake City (which had been New Wilson's last owner). It also leaves Carter Volkswagen as the last new-vehicle franchise on the Leary Way strip. There's no word yet what will happen to the Nelson property. Whether the Ballard Avenue Historic District's old bars and fishing- industry offices can survive the incursion of luxury dwellers will remain to be seen.

obits@thestranger.com