There is a Julius Knipl, Real Estate Photographer strip that I think of when I see signs announce that a place is going out of business. In Cheap Novelties, No. 064, Ben Katchor sketched a businessman whose retail stores existed solely to go out of business. The store would open to minimal business and curious tourists, then after a few weeks the owner would cover the store windows with liquidation announcements.

"SIGNS, LOUDSPEAKERS, HANDBILLS! 'EVERYTHING MUST GO!'"

These signs would spur significant business, enough to turn a profit, and then the place would close, leaving the owner to contemplate where he should go out of business next.

Is such a business strategy entirely fictional?

There really is a going out of business business, though its purpose differs from the subject of the Ben Katchor strip. Someone has to make those loud GOING OUT OF BUSINESS signs, and some of the window displays made from these signs are (I believe) spectacular.

Companies that make these signs also sell box loads of sawdust. Sawdust (dumped in the middle of the store) lends an air of urgency to a retail space that purports to be open for a limited time only.

The midtown Manhattan business shown in this Big Picture would not appear to be going out of business, but rather gone out of business.