Friday, April 14, 2023 – THE STORE IS GONE BUT NOT THE MEMORIES

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FROM THE ARCHIVES

FRIDAY, APRIL 14,  2023


ISSUE  964

THE REMAINS

OF WANAMAKER

DEPARTMENT STORE

EPHEMERAL NEW YORK

All that remains of a legendary Astor Place department store few New Yorkers remember

April 10, 2023

The letters are large and elegant, but they’re easy to miss—set against an off-white facade above a rusty garage door on Lafayette Street.
“Wanamaker,” the letters read. You’re forgiven if the name doesn’t ring a bell. This faint signage is just about all that remains of Wanamaker’s, a top department store that arrived in New York City in 1896 and became a leading retailer through the mid-1950s.

The story of Wanamaker’s echoes the story of so many of Gotham’s legendary dry goods emporiums, as they used to be known. These highly competitive stores made huge profits thanks to the riches of the Gilded Age and the introduction of modern consumerism.

Except Wanamaker’s got its start in Philadelphia, where namesake John Wanamaker opened his first men’s clothing shop in 1861. By the end of the century, Wanamaker began branching out into other cities as well as New York.

Wanamaker’s first occupied the former A.T. Stewart store on Broadway between 9th and 10th Streets (above, in 1901), then expanded its footprint by building a much larger store at 770 Broadway, between Eighth and Ninth Streets, in the early 1900s. A skybridge reportedly connected the two structures.

“Clad mostly in terra cotta, this grand shopping palace contained thirty-two acres of retail space, an auditorium with 1,300 seats, and a large restaurant to round out the shopping experience,” states Village Preservation’s Off the Grid blog. 

Unlike other major New York City department stores, Wanamaker’s never moved to Midtown. The store stuck it out on Astor Place until shutting its doors in the mid-1950s. A fire then consumed the empty older building. An apartment residence called Stewart House sits there today.

The Wanamaker sign I found isn’t on the 770 Broadway building; you can view it on the Lafayette Street side of 730 Broadway, where the company had a warehouse, according to a 1982 New York Times article.

The only other remnant of this retail giant is on New York City maps—Ninth Street between Broadway and Lafayette is still called Wanamaker Place.

FRIDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY

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THURSDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY

BEAUTIFUL NEW PLAQUE OUTSIDE RIHS
OFFICE IN THE OCTAGON THANKS TO BOZZUTO MANAGEMENT

NINA LUBLIN, ALEXS VILLAFANE, GLORIA HERMAN, CHRISTINA DELFICO AND VICKI FEINMEL GOT IT RIGHT.

Text by Judith Berdy
Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS
Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website
Edited by Melanie Colter and Deborah Dorff

All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Tags: Old Signs NYC, Wanamaker’s Astor Place Old Sign, Wanamaker’s Department Store Broadway, Wanamaker’s New York City, Wanamaker’s Sign Astor Place
Posted in Defunct department stores, East Village, Fashion and shopping |

THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.

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