Saturday, August 29, 2009
Recession is on the run – J. C. Penney’s is here
Upon reading my earlier article about Nordstrom’s arrival in our neighborhood, rich in department store history, an eminent preservationist gently chided me about an important omission.
Well, here goes. At 22-26 East 14th Street, where the Duane-Reade drugstore occupies the storefront, you will find the newest local addition to the Landmarks designations, traces of the former Bauman Brothers & Co furniture store. I defy anyone to identify that company, an 1881-97 major player. It has since been Woolworth’s pride, to 1928, then H.L.Green’s, and McCrory's, until its present drugstore tenancy. The upstairs once served nobly as the Delehanty Institute for the training of police and fire department candidates (predates the Academy?), and Parson's Art School's annex. So, what's so preservable here? Well, it is a cast-iron age survivalist. The architects, David and John Jardine, working for realtor James McCreery, used cast iron from the West Side Iron Works, to create a most imaginative facade. You can see it above the ground level, amazing that in the modernizing of street-level fronts the upper levels still survived.
We do have a neighborhood of amazing commercial history. First, the Ladies’ Mile, starting in 1858 with R. H. Macy’s store at 14th Street and 6th Avenue. and the 1862 Cast Iron Palace of A.T. Stewart’s (subsequently Wanamaker’s) at what is now 770 Broadway, its southern boundary, and Stern Brothers on 23rd Street at its northern frontier. In between, Lord and Taylor’s, B. Altman and Arnold Constable opened elegant emporiums, with the Siegel –Cooper (now Bed, Bath and Beyond, Filenes’s basement and T. J. Maxx’s) the most imposing. Megamillionaire James McCreery had a palatial store at Broadway and 11th Street, and Tiffany’s was on Union Square. Cast iron abounded.
S' Klein's On The Square, where the Zeckendorf Towers now stand, once defined Union Square’s shopping image. Both Ethel Mertz of Lucy’s and Edith Bunker of All in the Family browsed there for fashionable bargains.
Klein’s became part of Meshulah Riklis’s incredible Rapid American conglomerate empire and went down with it. Riklis, Turkish/Israeli teacher turned stockbroker, while at Piper Jaffray’s in Minneapolis in the 1960s persuaded his clients to stake him to $750,000 for a printing business, starting to buy firms and pyramiding their assets. The urban legends abound: by 1980 he owned McCrory’s dime store chain, more department stores, and bought into an obscure E-II, a holding company, which involved ownership of Schenley Industries and maneuvers with Dewar’s and Guinness labels, Faberge/Elizabeth Arden Toiletries and Samsonite luggage. He acquired Riviera Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, the Pickfair mansion in L.A., once Douglas Fairbanks’s and Mary Pickford’s home, which he tore down and rebuilt to please his bride, Pia Zadora, whose portrait, dressed in nothing but a modest smile, reputedly adorned the entrance hall (divorced, she eventually sold the property for $17M), Riklis also owned the Carnival Cruise line, which he sold (or maybe didn’t} to shipping line operatorTed Arison for $1. This all collapsed in late 1980s-’90, losing the investors some $3B, and owing the tax collectors some $28M, but what a story! Sorry, Meshulam Riklis and his family trust are not talking.
On the theme of whether the openings of new department stores forecast an economic recovery, there is a new Miracle on 34th Street (okay, 32nd Street). Once upon a time, there were Macy’s, E. J. Corvette’s and Gimbels department stores, all in a row of blocks, on Herald Square south of 34th Street. Gimbels went out in 1987, and the space was occupied by Stern’s, then Abraham & Strauss, and last, Manhattan Mall. The recession caused the closings of many upscale fashionable tenants in the area, Golden Paradise jewelers, Benedetti’s shoe store, Know Style, Rags, Gold Panel and even a Conway’s branch. It was therefore a pleasant surprise to see J. C. Penney’s open its first New York branch in what used to be Gimbels Basement of fond memory, two floors of 151,000 sq. ft.
Alas, not a pleasant surprise for all of us. The NY Times Thursday Styles fashion writer wants to know how this dowdy Middle American entity dares to waddle into the slickest, scariest fashion capital, in its flip-flops and old oversize shorts, without rebranding itself . Penney’s logo in Helvetica is old, their knockoffs of styles in cheap polyester are laughable, their Halston, Ronson and Liz Claiborne offshoots of styles, especially created for Penney’s, are pitiful nonsuccesses in mass-producing prestige wear (“masstige”), and the prevailing sizes are humongous large, cut even larger, with few size 2 items. Little does the Timesee consider that generations of Americans have found comfort and dignity in wearing Penney’s shirts and suits, and the same applies to their ladies garments (e.g. Cross Your Heart bras). There are tourists and people in the boroughs who wear large sizes, eat French fries and burgers and Cokes for lunch, and will be glad to find the comfort of the familiar logo in the middle of the fashion capital, among the somewhat tarnished go-go gear. Brace yourself, dear (good writer, btw), more mall chain stores are coming! Maybe the Times weekend fashion supplement should trim its space age styles, mostly unsuitable for any woman and man with self-esteem, and get nearer to home. Fashion NYC is getting too close to apocalyptical 1920’s Berlin.
Well, here goes. At 22-26 East 14th Street, where the Duane-Reade drugstore occupies the storefront, you will find the newest local addition to the Landmarks designations, traces of the former Bauman Brothers & Co furniture store. I defy anyone to identify that company, an 1881-97 major player. It has since been Woolworth’s pride, to 1928, then H.L.Green’s, and McCrory's, until its present drugstore tenancy. The upstairs once served nobly as the Delehanty Institute for the training of police and fire department candidates (predates the Academy?), and Parson's Art School's annex. So, what's so preservable here? Well, it is a cast-iron age survivalist. The architects, David and John Jardine, working for realtor James McCreery, used cast iron from the West Side Iron Works, to create a most imaginative facade. You can see it above the ground level, amazing that in the modernizing of street-level fronts the upper levels still survived.
We do have a neighborhood of amazing commercial history. First, the Ladies’ Mile, starting in 1858 with R. H. Macy’s store at 14th Street and 6th Avenue. and the 1862 Cast Iron Palace of A.T. Stewart’s (subsequently Wanamaker’s) at what is now 770 Broadway, its southern boundary, and Stern Brothers on 23rd Street at its northern frontier. In between, Lord and Taylor’s, B. Altman and Arnold Constable opened elegant emporiums, with the Siegel –Cooper (now Bed, Bath and Beyond, Filenes’s basement and T. J. Maxx’s) the most imposing. Megamillionaire James McCreery had a palatial store at Broadway and 11th Street, and Tiffany’s was on Union Square. Cast iron abounded.
S' Klein's On The Square, where the Zeckendorf Towers now stand, once defined Union Square’s shopping image. Both Ethel Mertz of Lucy’s and Edith Bunker of All in the Family browsed there for fashionable bargains.
Klein’s became part of Meshulah Riklis’s incredible Rapid American conglomerate empire and went down with it. Riklis, Turkish/Israeli teacher turned stockbroker, while at Piper Jaffray’s in Minneapolis in the 1960s persuaded his clients to stake him to $750,000 for a printing business, starting to buy firms and pyramiding their assets. The urban legends abound: by 1980 he owned McCrory’s dime store chain, more department stores, and bought into an obscure E-II, a holding company, which involved ownership of Schenley Industries and maneuvers with Dewar’s and Guinness labels, Faberge/Elizabeth Arden Toiletries and Samsonite luggage. He acquired Riviera Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, the Pickfair mansion in L.A., once Douglas Fairbanks’s and Mary Pickford’s home, which he tore down and rebuilt to please his bride, Pia Zadora, whose portrait, dressed in nothing but a modest smile, reputedly adorned the entrance hall (divorced, she eventually sold the property for $17M), Riklis also owned the Carnival Cruise line, which he sold (or maybe didn’t} to shipping line operatorTed Arison for $1. This all collapsed in late 1980s-’90, losing the investors some $3B, and owing the tax collectors some $28M, but what a story! Sorry, Meshulam Riklis and his family trust are not talking.
On the theme of whether the openings of new department stores forecast an economic recovery, there is a new Miracle on 34th Street (okay, 32nd Street). Once upon a time, there were Macy’s, E. J. Corvette’s and Gimbels department stores, all in a row of blocks, on Herald Square south of 34th Street. Gimbels went out in 1987, and the space was occupied by Stern’s, then Abraham & Strauss, and last, Manhattan Mall. The recession caused the closings of many upscale fashionable tenants in the area, Golden Paradise jewelers, Benedetti’s shoe store, Know Style, Rags, Gold Panel and even a Conway’s branch. It was therefore a pleasant surprise to see J. C. Penney’s open its first New York branch in what used to be Gimbels Basement of fond memory, two floors of 151,000 sq. ft.
Alas, not a pleasant surprise for all of us. The NY Times Thursday Styles fashion writer wants to know how this dowdy Middle American entity dares to waddle into the slickest, scariest fashion capital, in its flip-flops and old oversize shorts, without rebranding itself . Penney’s logo in Helvetica is old, their knockoffs of styles in cheap polyester are laughable, their Halston, Ronson and Liz Claiborne offshoots of styles, especially created for Penney’s, are pitiful nonsuccesses in mass-producing prestige wear (“masstige”), and the prevailing sizes are humongous large, cut even larger, with few size 2 items. Little does the Timesee consider that generations of Americans have found comfort and dignity in wearing Penney’s shirts and suits, and the same applies to their ladies garments (e.g. Cross Your Heart bras). There are tourists and people in the boroughs who wear large sizes, eat French fries and burgers and Cokes for lunch, and will be glad to find the comfort of the familiar logo in the middle of the fashion capital, among the somewhat tarnished go-go gear. Brace yourself, dear (good writer, btw), more mall chain stores are coming! Maybe the Times weekend fashion supplement should trim its space age styles, mostly unsuitable for any woman and man with self-esteem, and get nearer to home. Fashion NYC is getting too close to apocalyptical 1920’s Berlin.
# posted by Wally Dobelis @ 2:59 AM 
