Lester Tag

Lester Gribetz, a former Bloomingdale’s vice chairman and for a long time a highly respected and talented retail executive immersed in the house furnishings and cosmetics industries, died Thursday morning at his home in Manhattan along with his husband by his side. He was 93. “Lester was a special and rare human being,” said his husband, Andy Peters, who confirmed Gribetz’s passing. “His open heart and type, caring nature captured everyone he got here into contact with. He was also a talented, once-in-a-generation merchant, which guided him from folding towels at Bloomingdale’s just out of the military to becoming vice chairman of the shop.” “He was a master merchant with an ideal eye,” said Jack Hruska, the previous executive vice chairman of...