Eventually Briggs was sold to another meat distributor, where, by some accounts, the quality of the meat eroded.

Diana, a none-too-successful meat distributor, suddenly announced that it was in the telecommunications business and was somehow a play on the Internet.

Now hip restaurants, boutiques, and technology start-ups were sprinkled among the wholesale meat distributors and commercial butcheries.

"It feels like spring," said Mr. Telle, who drives a delivery truck for a wholesale meat distributor.

Owens died at age 64 in Chicago after suffering a heart attack at the wholesale meat distributor where he had worked as a salesman since leaving baseball.

Some are started by ordinary people - a computer salesman, a shrimp processor, meat distributors and lawyers, among others - hoping to cure a loved one.

Her father is a partner in Holtzman & Paris, a meat distributor in Brooklyn.

His father was an owner of the New York Flank Company, a wholesale meat distributor in Manhattan.

Her father is president of the Denver Boneless Beef Company, a meat distributor.

What most people see around here, however, is a theater in between a meat distributor and a printing press.