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Posted by
W.B.
on Tue Nov 4 18:02:40 2025
November 4-5, 1954 - The Book of Corporate Mergers, Acquisitions and Consolidations
New York City
Fifth Avenue Coach Company
New York City Omnibus Corporation
On November 4, stockholders approve the sale of Fifth Avenue Coach to New York City Omnibus for $2,240,000. On November 5, the sale is finalized and the acquisition completed.
This was the culmination of a process begun in April when Chicago-based Omnibus Corporation, which had owned FACCo since 1924 and NYCO from its inception in 1926, decided to divest of these remaining urban omnibus properties (it had sold Chicago Motor Coach Corporation to the Chicago Transit Authority in 1952), followed in May by a local entity, New York Management Ownership Corporation (NYMOC or NYMO), spearheaded by longtime FACCo and NYCO president John E. McCarthy, stepping up to acquire the two firms. In the wake of NYCO's takeover of FACCo, the latter adopts the moniker "Fifth Avenue Coach Lines" on both their fleets (with "New York City Omnibus Corp. Operator" in small print on both the front lower left and front lower right sides of the buses) and their paper transfers, rather than "Fifth Avenue Coach Company" (this may have been the prelude to the eventual reorganization of the entire firm as Fifth Avenue Coach Lines, Inc. in 1956), and the 1955 edition of Hagstrom's map of Manhattan bus and trolley lines lists "Fifth Avenue Coach Routes of New York City Omnibus Corp." It is with this acquisition that the designations of "NYCO Division" and "FACO Division" begin to take hold.
With the November 5 completion of this transaction, Omnibus officially exits the urban omnibus business and concentrates all its energies running Hertz Driv-Ur-Self System, Inc., the car rental firm it had acquired in September 1953 from General Motors for $10 million. To emphasize this shift in priorities, the company will officially change its name to Hertz Corporation on November 19.
(Sources: "2 City Bus Lines Will Be Merged," The New York Times, November 5, 1954; "Annual Report For the Year Ended December 31, 1954," New York City Omnibus Corporation, 1955; Hagstrom's Map of New York (Manhattan) Bus Lines / Trolley Lines, Hagstrom Company, edition dated April 1955; "New York City Omnibus Corp." by Bernard Linder, Motor Coach Age, February 1969.)
November 4, 1990 - The Book of Deaths
Harry S. Weinberg, who ran bus companies in Dallas, TX; Scranton, PA; and Honolulu, HI, dies in Honolulu at age 82, having suffered for years from multiple myeloma. He is most infamous in New York, however, for his February 1962 hostile takeover of Fifth Avenue Coach Lines, Inc., having purchased shares of FACL's stock as early as 1956 and his holdings going up to 25% by May 1961 (as well as for his anti-union leanings); he was a forerunner of what would come to be known as "activist stockholders/shareholders" (a more recent example being billionaire Carl Icahn). Under his very short-lived stewardship (which saw Lawrence I. Weisman installed as vice president and the odious Roy M. Cohn as a director), he instituted a series of policies and actions that led directly to a TWU strike against the company commencing March 1, 1962 - and all of the company's (and its Surface Transit subsidiary's) routes, depots/garages and bus fleets being seized by the city and placed under the operating aegis of a new agency, Manhattan and Bronx Surface Transit Operating Authority (MaBSTOA); Weinberg and his successors kept the city and MaBSTOA in the courts for several years over payment for such seizures (with big payouts to FACL in 1967 and 1970).
After settling in Honolulu following FACL's being run out of operation in New York (though the company would continue to operate Westchester Street Transportation Company, Inc., before that entity was sold in 1969 to the owners of Liberty Lines), Weinberg branched out into real estate (with holdings all across the country) and became a philanthropist, tending to his Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation.
(Sources include: "From a Nickel to a Token: The Journey from Board of Transportation to MTA" by Andrew J. Sparberg. Oxford University Press, 2014.)
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