From Can’t Get Much Higher:
In 1897, Louis Meyers established a business in Manhattan focused on transportation for funeral services. As the business grew, Meyers began to open up his own funeral parlors. His grandson Edward Rosenthal would make it the largest funeral services group in the United States by the 1950s. Around that time, he brought his daughter’s husband Steve Ross into the business.
With a good sense for business opportunities, Ross launched a rent-a-car company. This is when the web of companies began to spin in all directions. The funeral and rent-a-car businesses were soon merged with the Kinney Parking Company, a parking lot operator with ties to organized crime. A cleaning company joined the bunch before Ross took the company public in 1962 as the “Kinney Service Corporation.” Luckily, the funeral company that became Steve Ross’s Warner Communications still exists. You can visit it at 180 West 76th Street in New York City.