NYC Vintage Image Of The Day: Barney's Department Store, 1923

By the time Barney's entered the nation's department store boom of the early 1920s, it was already late to the game. The first multi-retailer of dry goods in the nation, AT Stewart, was founded in New York way back in 1846. Brooklyn's Abraham & Straus joined in 1893, followed by Macy's, Marshall Fields, Bloomingdales, Wanamaker's, Sears, Saks and numerous other regional retailers.

Barney Pressman started his career pressing pants for 3 cents each in his diddy's clothing store. In 1923, he hawked his wife's engagement ring for $500 to open Barney's Clothes, a 200 sf hole in the wall on Seventh Avenue at 17th Street. The store stocked 40 brand name suits at discounted prices with the slogan "No Bunk, No Junk, No Imitations." Much of his merch were showroom samples, retail overstocks and auction & bankruptcy closeouts, with free alterations to customers. As business grew, in 1934, floors above street level were added to the store.

Pressman was an early marketing wiz, increasing visibility with radio ads "calling all men to Barney's" in the 1930s, and sponsorship of radio programs featuring Irish tenors and bands playing jigs to advertise Irish woolens—which made sense, since he was located in a nabe known more for Irish pubs than clothing stores. He also had comely ladies hand out matchbooks embossed with store ads by the thousands (above).

Barney Pressman's son, Fred, joined the biz in 1946. The company had sales of $13 million in 1965, when, with his father's blessing, Fred edged the store toward the luxury realm. It added a five-story addition to its Seventh Avenue location, now commanding an entire city block between 16 and 17th streets.With 100,000 sf of retail space, the store had annual sales of $33 million by 1973, double that of the average men's store. Stock included 60,000 suits, including designer labels Bill Blass, Pierre Cardin, Christian Dior, de Givenchy and Georgio Armani. Its Pub restaurant, which had served nothing but roast beef, was renamed The Cafe, and began selling soups, salads and sandwiches.

In 1986, Barney's expanded with an additional 70,000 sf of retail space in a row of six townhouses across the street on 17th Street. The $25 million acquisition added a beauty salon & full-service restaurant, antiques & housewares, accounting for a third of $90 million in sales within a year.In 1988, Barney's opened a 10,000 sf men's store in the posh World Financial Center—which, in 1993, relocated to its current 230,000 sf headquarters at 660 Madison Avenue between 60th and 61st streets. It was the largest new store in NYC since the first Great Depression, 22 stories tall with 14 floors of office space atop the retailer. The building cost Barney's $267 million.

Like most department stores, Barney's had an eye on regional expansion: It opened in Manhasset, N.Y., Short Hills, N.J., and Newton, Mass., followed by Dallas, Chicago, Westport, Conn., Houston, Cleveland, Seattle and Costa Mesa, Calif. In 1993, it launched a posh 125,000 sf, $120 million West Coast marquis in Beverly Hills, while adding a total of 30 smaller outlets around the nation and, with a financial partner, stores in Tokyo.

Perhaps it was too much too fast. By 1994 there were indications that Barney's finances were in disarray. (Fortunately, Barney Pressman never lived to see his company's downfall; he died in 1991 at age 96.) Because of overspending, the family-run company filed for bankruptcy protection in January 1996. In 2004, the Pressman family sold its remaining 2% ownership to Jones Apparel Group, which in turn flipped the assets to a Dubai-based company. Its total debt at the time was $500 million, as the luxury market took a major hit in the States.

Today, Barney's operates stores in New York City, Chicago, Boston, San Francisco, Dallas, Las Vegas, Scottsdale and Beverly Hills, plus more than a dozen discount "Co-Op" stores—an ironic return to its roots. But there's still room to grow: Five venues now dot Japan, while a London store is planned to open within the year.

NYC Vintage Image Of The Day: Bloomingdale's

Bloomingdale's owes it all to the hoop skirt. In 1861, brothers Joseph and Lyman Bloomingdale started peddling the high-end fashionable women's wear at their Ladies Notions Shop on Manhattan’s lower East Side. Their pop, Benjamin, a Bavarian-born salesman, meanwhile, sold the same along the Eastern Seaboard.

As the hoop's popularity deflated, the brothers opened an East Side Bazaar in 1872 in a row house on Third Avenue & 56th Street, selling ladies’ skirts, corsets, gent’s furnishings and European fashions.

At the time the East Side was a working-class neighborhood with shantytowns and stockyards, thus most of their competitors and customers were based on the Upper West Side.

The Bloomingdale boys were obviously ahead of their time. Within a few years, the Metropolitan Museum and St. Patrick’s Cathedral arrived, while Central Park was completed and the New York subway was beginning construction. All of this brought posh clientele to the East Side, who built grand brownstones facing the new park.

By 1886, the bros moved their store to its current location on 59th Street and Lexington Avenue, with large plate windows and graciously open merch areas. And instead of the typical practice of packing display windows with an assortment of goods, they decorated each with a theatrical mise-en-scène focal display, often displaying European imports. Go, girls!

Fast forward to 1900: Aided by its location at the hub of a horse-drawn trolley system, Bloomingdale's was a sensation. Offerings ranged from ladies stockings at 10¢ a pair to $10 men’s wool suits and $149 upright pianos. In 1913, the 58th Street subway station opened right to Bloomie's basement, allowing it to add to the building until it covered an entire city block by 1929s, coherently redesigned in the Art Deco style.
In 1930, Bloomingdale’s joined Federated Department Stores—which also commandeered Abraham & Strauss (our NYC Vintage Department store for Wednesday, July 13), Filene's and Lazarus. The next step for Bloomingdale's was suburban expansion. In 1949, its first branch opened in the Fresh Meadows section of Queens; 25,000 people shopped at the store on opening day. As the department store continued to evolve into a chain, it created its iconic "Brown Bag" in 1972. In 1978, the Bloomingdale’s By Mail catalog launched. Fashion designers Ralph Lauren, Perry Ellis and Norma Kamali all became famous by first merchandising at Bloomingdale's.

Some 150 years later, Bloomingdale's currently operates 40 stores in New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, Illinois, Minnesota, Florida, California, Nevada and Georgia. Oh, and there's one more: In February 2010, Bloomingdale's opened its first store outside of the U.S., in the United Arab Emirates faux-Americanized territory of Dubai. I would certainly call that نجاح

NYC Image Of The Day: Abraham & Straus, Born & Bred In Brooklyn

Without the commanding presence of Brooklyn's beloved Abraham & Straus, we surely would not have today's Macy's, Bloomingdale's, Filene's or Stern's.

In 1865, before the Brooklyn Bridge linked New York's largest borough to the rest of the city, Abraham Abraham and Joseph Wechsler opened dry goods retailer Wechsler & Abraham on Fulton Street in the heart of downtown. In 1893, the Straus family and Simon Rothschild bought out Wechsler's interest in the company and renamed the joint Abraham & Straus—which also had controlling interest in R.H. Macy & Co. in New York. By 1900, A&S had 4,650 employees. In April, 1912, co-founder Isidor Straus and his wife Ida went down with the Titanic. Oops.

Within 15 years, the thriving company bought & renovated an ornate Art Deco cast iron building down the street, and the glistening new department store became the ultimate destination for downtown Brooklyn's upscale clientele. (The elevator doors to the right remain in operating order at Macy's today)

The space was continually expanded through 1928 until it took up an entire city block at 422 Fulton Street in Brooklyn. The A&S anchor store represented the height of white-glove service and elegance in the department store biz, mobbed with customers (below), doting upon them with uniformed elevator operators, a gourmet food center, furs, restaurant, art gallery, beauty salon, stamps & coins and even a fabulous "wig bar."

There was even space (below left) where you could pull in your horse & buggy and park them comfortably underground.In 1929, Abraham & Straus, Bloomingdale’s, Filene’s & Lazarus merged to form Federated Department Stores and set up base in Cincinnati. In 1950, the company purchased Loeser’s in Garden City and converted that to Abraham & Straus, continuing suburban expansion in Hempstead, N.Y., in 1952, followed by Manhasset, Smithtown, Babylon, White Plains and Manhattan; Monmouth, Short Hills and Paramus, N.J.; and King of Prussia and Willow Grove, Penn.

Throughout much of the 20th Century, Abraham & Straus maintained stance as the powerhouse of Federated. However, over-expansion to other regions and vapid business strategies toppled the fortunes of A&S and by the late 1970s, after a real estate developer purchased Federated, it merged with Boston's Jordan Marsh. In 1994, the beloved A&S brand was shuttered under the Macy's banner, with a handful of stores becoming Federated's low-end Stern's.Fortunately, A&S lives on, if only in spirit. At the original location on Fulton Street in Brooklyn, a prominent plaque is outside of what is still Macy's today (above), paying homage to the company's grand history.

In 2003, the Brooklyn Heights Assn. and Municipal Art Society added the building to 28 historic structures in downtown Brooklyn meriting landmark designation. Sadly, Macy's nixed the "wig bar."Much of this information came from Plummer & Associates Blog. A generous thanks.)

NYC Image Of The Day: 1st U.S. Department Store, AT Stewart, 1846

In 1846, Irish-born Alexander Turney Stewart established what would become the first department store in the nation, AT Stewart, fondly called the Marble Palace, at 280 Broadway between Chambers & Reade Streets. The building still stands today, in pristine condition.

Prior to the 19th Century, the closest retailer resembling a department store were small, family-owned general stores, where customers often had to barter for prices. AT Stewart offered European retail merchandise, low markups, set prices on a variety of dry goods and a policy of providing "free entrance" to all customers. It was an instant success.

Stewart soon expanded the store, displaying merch through the five-story building's oversized French plate glass windows. By 1850, AT Stewart was the largest retailer in the city and renowned not only for its wares, but its distinctive design. The building's marble-clad exterior utilized Tuckahoe marble on the outer surface, which soon gained popularity among commercial structures throughout the area.In 1858, Rowland Hussey Macy founded dry goods store Macy's, and soon after, competitors Lord & Taylor B. Altman, McCreary's & Abraham & Straus in Brooklyn entered the fray. Not to be outdone, in 1862, Stewart opened a second department store on a full city block at Broadway & 9th Street, with eight floors & 19 departments of dress goods & furnishings, carpets, glass & china, toys & sports equipment, all centered around a glass-covered court.

Later, it was the location of New York's famed Wanamaker's department store and is now an office building. I actually worked there at Billboard 2000-2009. It's also the base of AOL today.

Stewart's original downtown store at 280 Broadway was later converted into a warehouse, and, in 1884, owners added two additional floors. In 1917, the New York Sun purchased the building, setting up shop for nearly half a century until 1966, when the City of New York acquired the landmark structure. The city's intention was to demolish it and build a civic center on the site. But thankfully it was spared and in 1995, underwent substantial reconstruction, which continues today. It now houses the NYC Department of Buildings on the upper levels and Modell's Sporting Goods on the first floor.
Ultimately, Stewart became one of America's richest men, with stores around the world and several mills and factories. He had an estimated annual income of $1 million in 1869, and went on to establish Long Island's Garden City in 1875. Below is his residence at 34th & Fifth Avenue.