From a Louisiana milliner to a French immigrant, the founders of New York’s finest department stores were simple men with extraordinary visions. Each would pioneer a concept, from affordable men’s suits and tailoring to bringing premium wares and undiscovered designers from Europe to Manhattan, and many even charted unknown territory, leaving the city’s commercial hub to venture uptown into what were mostly residential neighborhoods. Today the temples of American retail that these men created are as much a part of our nation’s history as George Washington (incidentally, Lord and Taylor cofounder George Washington Taylor was even named after our first president). 카지노사이트

Shown: Saks Fifth AvenueIn September 1924, cousins Horace Saks and Bernard Gimbel were the talk of the town. They had just opened a shiny new retail store that had an entire block of frontage on Fifth Avenue. Saks Fifth Avenue rivaled fellow Fifth Avenue tenant Lord and Taylor and, more importantly, Macy’s, the Herald Square competitor of the Gimbel brothers’ own namesake store. Saks was the first New York department store to formalize the idea of window displays, and nearly one century later, its holiday windows, conveniently located right across from the Rockefeller Center tree, still generate plenty of buzz, much like its founders decades ago.

Barneys New York
Contrary to its present status as a destination for Europe’s finest designer goods, Barneys started off in Chelsea as a discount reseller of showroom samples and retail overstock. It wasn’t until founder Barney Pressman’s son, Fred, took over that the store expanded and began selling luxury goods. And it wasn’t until 1993 that the retailer moved to its current nine-story, Kohn Pederson Fox–designed flagship, also in Chelsea, with luscious lacquer walls and gold-leaf ceilings by Peter Marino. Barneys’ current interiors are more pared down thanks to the design prowess of Steven Harris Architects. This February will mark the much-anticipated return of Barneys to its original location.

Lord & Taylor
This pioneering New York department store has heralded a string of firsts. Opened by Samuel Lord and George Washington Taylor in 1826, it was the first luxury department store in North America. When it moved to its present location in 1914, it became the first store on Fifth Avenue. And, in 1945, it boasted the first woman president of a major American retail establishment. Lord & Taylor was also the first department store project of architecture firm Starrett and Van Vleck, which would go on to design Saks Fifth Avenue and Bloomingdale’s. Today Lord & Taylor’s handsome Italian Renaissance Revival façade still anchors its 38th Street block on Fifth Avenue. 안전한카지노사이트

Bloomingdale’s
Brothers Joseph and Lyman Bloomingdale first started selling their chic European wares (the hoopskirt was the most iconic among them) on the Lower East Side in 1872, then moved uptown to 59th Street in 1886. Soon after, their eponymous store grew to take up one city block, and in 1931, it introduced the Art Deco façade that graces Lexington Avenue today. More than just a department store, Bloomingdale’s also became a venue for numerous theatrical spectacles, including the 1947 “Woman of the Year” pageant. The store’s signature black-and-white checkered floor was refreshed in 2009.

Henri Bendel
The store was founded in 1913 in Greenwich Village by Louisiana-born milliner Henri Bendel, who boldly registered his own trademark and developed the signature brown-and-white striped hat box and bag that still define the brand today. He was the first to open a retail shop in the neighborhood, which was primarily reserved for residential buildings at the time. But today’s Upper East Side incarnation of the store was brought about by retail magnate Leslie Wexner, who purchased French perfumer Coty’s former emporium and fully restored it—impressive René Lalique–designed windows and all—to house the iconic store that introduced Coco Chanel to America and made a little known illustrator named Andy Warhol famous.

Macy’s
Founded in 1858 as a small dry-goods shop on the corner of 14th Street and 6th Avenue by Rowland Hussey Macy, the department store moved to its iconic De Lemos & Cordes–designed Beaux Arts building on 34th Street and Broadway in 1902. In 1931 that store was extended; its new 7th Avenue building, designed by Robert D. Kohn, reflected the Art Moderne style of the times. Today, Macy’s anchors Herald Square as the world’s largest store, and a renovation now under way will bring its total retail space to 1.1 million square feet. 카지노사이트 추천

Bergdorf Goodman
The story of this beloved department store has a humble start in 1899 in Union Square. Herman Bergdorf, an immigrant from France, opened a tailor shop and took 25-year-old New Yorker Edwin Goodman as his apprentice. In a matter of years, Goodman was able to buy his French partner out of the company—Bergdorf retired to Paris. In 1928, the thriving business allowed Goodman to build the handsome marble-faced Beaux Arts structure that graces 58th Street today on the former site of Cornelius Vanderbilt II’s Fifth Avenue mansion. Soon the prolific Goodman was able to purchase the entire block, further expanding his store. In 1990 the storied retailer even bought out a sizable space across Fifth Avenue for its men’s store.