Abraham & Straus

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Abraham & Straus
Company typeCorporation
Industry Retail
FoundedFebruary 2, 1865;159 years ago (1865-02-02) in Brooklyn, New York [1]
Founder Abraham Abraham
Joseph Wechsler
DefunctApril 30, 1995;29 years ago (1995-04-30)
FateAcquired by Federated Department Stores, converted to Macy's, Stern's, and Bloomingdale's
Successor Macy's
Headquarters Brooklyn, New York City, U.S.
ProductsClothing, footwear, bedding, furniture, jewelry, beauty products, and housewares.
Parent Federated Department Stores (1929–1995) [2]

Abraham & Straus, commonly shortened to A&S, was a major New York City department store, based in Brooklyn. [3] Founded in 1865, it became part of Federated Department Stores in 1929. [4] [5] Shortly after Federated's 1994 acquisition of R.H. Macy & Company, it eliminated the A&S brand. [6] Most A&S stores took the Macy's name, although a few became part of Stern's, another Federated division, but one that offered lower-end goods than Macy's or A&S did. [7]

Contents

History

Timeline

Founding and early history

Namesakes
Abraham Abraham 1843-1911 (cropped).jpeg
Abraham
Isidor Straus 1903.jpg
Straus

The first Brooklyn store, at 285 Fulton Street, opened in 1865 and measured 25 feet by 90 feet. Abraham Abraham, age 22, and Joseph Wechsler each contributed $5,000 for the purchase. [10] In 1883, the firm bought the recently built Second Empire cast-iron Wheeler Building at 422 Fulton Street to be their flagship store. [11]

On April 1, 1893, Nathan Straus, Isidor Straus, [12] and Simon F. Rothschild as partners – the Straus brothers provided the financing, but Rothschild was the active partner [13] – bought out Wechsler, and the firm became Abraham & Straus. At the time, the company had 2,000 employees. Simon F. Rothschild, Abraham's son-in-law, Edward Charles Blum, and son, Lawrence Abraham, became partners in the new firm. [14]

1900–1969

By 1900, the company had 4,650 employees. From the 1890s to the 1920s, A&S utilized a system of catalog store agencies across Long Island to serve customers. [10]

In 1912, Isidor Straus, along with his wife Ida, died in the sinking of the RMS Titanic.

Around 1915, after Abraham's daughter married Isidor's son Percy Selden Straus, the Straus family divided up the empire with Nathan's family running A&S and Isidor's family running Macy's. [12]

Beginning in 1928, the company embarked on a $7.8 million expansion of the Fulton Street Store, which included excavating a new basement without disturbing customers above. The renovated store opened October 10, just days before the Wall Street Crash of 1929. In the summer of 1929, the company joined Filene's and Lazarus to form Federated Department Stores. Bloomingdale's joined the following year. To economize during the Depression, the company began scheduling employees according to hourly sales. In addition, all employees took a 10 percent pay cut. No employees were laid off. [10]

In 1937, Walter N. Rothschild led the company, and was president and chairman until 1955. Following Rothschild, Sidney L. Solomon became the company's first non-family president. At the time, the company had 12,000 employees.

After World War II – The company grew. In 1950, the company purchased Loeser's Garden City store, and two years later, its first new branch store opened in Hempstead, New York. [10]

In the following decades, the company expanded throughout the New York metropolitan area. Among its expansions was an anchor store at Paramus Park in Paramus, New Jersey, which necessitated the building of an access road that, despite the conversion of the store to Macy's, is still today known as A&S Drive.

1970–1995

In the 1970s, Federated attempted to update the image of A&S and funded the construction of new, more upscale stores. A&S developed a new logo that once again branded the stores Abraham & Straus. The company opened a central distribution center which decreased the amount of non-selling space needed in each store.

In 1978, the firm opened the first of its more upscale stores at the Monmouth Mall in Eatontown, New Jersey. This was followed by stores in White Plains, New York, in 1980, The Mall at Short Hills in New Jersey, in 1981, and a replacement for the chain's Babylon, Long Island store at Westfield Sunrise Mall.

In 1981 and 1982, the chain opened two stores at malls in the suburban Philadelphia market, The Court at King of Prussia and Willow Grove Park Mall. These new stores struggled to find their niche, and the two Pennsylvania stores were closed in 1987 and 1988, respectively, and the space became occupied by Philadelphia-based Strawbridge and Clothier.

The Short Hills, New Jersey store seemed out of place in the very upscale mall, and customers resisted what were seen to be the store's more rigid policies concerning check acceptance, inter-store transfers, and refunds. Eventually, A&S would stock the Short Hills location with merchandise that better befit the location.

In 1994, Federated acquired Macy's. [15] [16] Since both Macy's and A&S competed for the same type of middle-income customer, Federated felt that the weaker A&S brand should be eliminated. [17] In January 1995, it was announced that all A&S locations would be converted to other brands by April 30. [18] Most became Macy's or Stern's, but one location was converted to a Bloomingdale's and another was sold to Sears. [19] The two A&S stores getting replaced by Bloomingdale's and Sears were closed whereas most locations turning into Macy's or Stern's were rebranded without any interruption. [20] [21] The A&S locations at Queens Center and Sunrise Mall were closed to make room respectively for existing Macy's and Stern's stores relocating with their own employees in the spaces. [22] [23] Although the chain itself became defunct on April 30, the Roosevelt Field location (the one being taken over by Bloomingdale's) continued its clearance sale as a A&S store until May 28, 1995. [24] [25]

Fulton Street flagship store

Livingston Street annex 177 Livingston St Gallatin Pl jeh.jpg
Livingston Street annex

The company's 841,000-square-foot Brooklyn flagship store was located at 422 Fulton Street, in the Fulton Street Mall.

From the beginning, the company had high aspirations. In 1885, the company hired architect George L. Morse to work on the Fulton Street store in Downtown Brooklyn. For their 1928 to 1930 renovations and additions, the company hired architects Starrett & van Vleck to build an Art Deco addition that faced Fulton, Hoyt, and Livingston Streets. In 2003, the Brooklyn Heights Association and the Municipal Art Society put the building on a list of 28 historic buildings in downtown Brooklyn that needed to be protected. [26]

In the mid-1970s, Abraham & Straus' flagship store made mannequin modeling famous. Linda Timmins, head of the division, selected one juvenile and ingénue with "The Editorial Look" from each of the high schools across Brooklyn and Manhattan. The schools and their students were also selected for high academic standing; Manhattan Performing Arts High School student Yvette Post, Metropolitan Opera juvenile star Robert Westin, Brooklyn's Abraham Lincoln High School's Alan Jay Kahm and head cheerleader Paula Gallo, as well as Maria Russo of Catherine McAuley High School (Brooklyn) were some of the few selected to represent the youth of New York. These "Mannequin Models" would pose for up to an hour at a time in the windows of the store as "Living Mannequins", wearing classic designer clothes and current fashions designed by Nik Nik, Pierre Cardin, and other top designers and exclusive prêt-à-porter from upscale fashion houses.

Eventually, as crowds would often stop traffic and became a safety hazard, Abraham & Straus had to move the Living Mannequins inside the store or face a stiff penalty from the city. Despite this change, the crowds still came. Each season, the young mannequin models would be allowed to move in order to do an in-store runway show for the Designer de Jour. Although it was the 1970s, the store did not feature polyester suits or non-designer outfits in these shows.

Unlike countless numbers of downtown department stores that have closed throughout the nation, this historic location continues as a Macy's. At 1,012,000 sq ft (94,000 m2), it is the second-largest Macy's in the New York City area. [27] Macy's utilizes the lower level through 5th floor for retail departments, the 6th floor for seasonal merchandise and a beauty salon, and upper floors for a number of corporate departments. Display windows continue to be maintained along Fulton Street, and the elevator bank in the middle of the street floor continues to evoke hints of this building's elegant past. The passenger elevators at this location were among the last in all of New York City to be converted from manual operator to automatic use.

On July 16, 2014, Women's Wear Daily' reported that Macy’s had stopped the renovation of its Brooklyn flagship while it considered possibly selling the property, which could be worth $300 million (~$380 million in 2023) from a developer looking to turn it into condominium apartments. It had also been reported that Macy's was considering building a new Downtown Brooklyn store. [28]

By 2016, the decision was made to remain in the current location, but consolidate the space into four level floors and sell off the remaining floors. [29] As of 2018, the work continues to progress.

See also

Related Research Articles

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References

  1. ↑ "A&S Now Part of Retailing History". Newsday . Melville, New York. January 18, 1995. pp. A35.
  2. ↑ "A&S: Change to Macy's begins". The Record (New Jersey) . Hackensack, New Jersey. April 28, 1995. p. 26.
  3. ↑ "A&S shutting B'klyn office". New York Daily News . New York. January 7, 1995. p. 4.
  4. ↑ "For shoppers, A&S just a memory now". New York Daily News . New York. April 28, 1995. p. 778.
  5. ↑ https://www.costar.com/article/1191889006/macys-165-year-journey-from-humble-beginnings-to-troubled-icon
  6. ↑ "Federated cashes out A&S". Citizen Register. Ossining, New York. January 18, 1995. p. 37.
  7. ↑ "A&S becoming Stern's". The Journal News . White Plains, New York. January 18, 1995. p. 20.
  8. ↑ "A&S Plan to Consolidate". Newsday . New York. March 7, 1992. p. 18.
  9. ↑ "Merger on tap for Federated, Macy's units". Fort Worth Star-Telegram . Fort Worth, Texas. September 21, 1994. p. 32.
  10. 1 2 3 4 "...And Paramus Makes Ten," internal history published on opening of Paramus Park store, 1974
  11. ↑ "MAS Proposed Downtown Landmark #4". Brownstoner. October 13, 2005. Archived from the original on July 8, 2011.
  12. 1 2 "Mr. and Mrs. Nathan Straus – information". engineer.com. Archived from the original on September 29, 2007. Retrieved November 8, 2007.
  13. ↑ "Now Abraham & Straus.; Big Change in a Big Store Which All Brooklyn Knows". The New York Times . April 2, 1893. Retrieved March 19, 2007.
  14. ↑ McCash, June Hall (2012). A Titanic Love Story- Ida and Isidor Straus. Mercer University Press. p. 130. ISBN   9780881462777.
  15. ↑ "Macy's and Federated stores merging". The Record (New Jersey) . Hackensack, New Jersey. July 15, 1994. pp. A1.
  16. ↑ "MERGER: Macy's and Federated". The Record (New Jersey) . Hackensack, New Jersey. July 15, 1994. pp. A10.
  17. ↑ "Say It Ain't So LI Without Bloomie's". Newsday . Melville, New York. September 28, 1995. pp. A67.
  18. ↑ "A&S Macy's merger letter to customers". Citizen Register. Ossining, New York. January 18, 1995. p. 5.
  19. ↑ Berger, Joseph (January 18, 1995). "After 130 Years, A. & S. Name Will Fade Into Retailing History". The New York Times. Retrieved July 23, 2021.
  20. ↑ Staff, W. W. D. (January 18, 1995). "A&S NAME TO VANISH AS FERERATED REALIGNS STORES IN NORTHEAST".
  21. ↑ "Final Days for A&S; Stores to Changes Names". Newsday . Melville, New York. January 18, 1995. p. 36.
  22. ↑ Staff, W. W. D. (April 5, 1995). "FEDERATED JUGGLES MACY'S, STERN'S LINEUP IN QUEENS".
  23. ↑ "A&S store to close - Woodbridge Center to get Sears". Asbury Park Press . December 28, 1994.
  24. ↑ "Odd Miracle at Whitman Mall". Newsday . Melville, New York. May 1, 1995. pp. A14.
  25. ↑ "A&S (Roosevelt Field) closing sale advertisement page". Newsday . Melville, New York. May 11, 1995. pp. A14.
  26. ↑ Gray, Christopher (July 24, 2005). "Different Name, Same Architecture". The New York Times .
  27. ↑ "New York, NY – 5 Boroughs, Lower Hudson Valley & Northeast Bergen Co., NJ" (PDF). Macy's Inc. Archived from the original (PDF) on April 28, 2012. Retrieved November 20, 2011.
  28. ↑ Moin, David (July 16, 2014). "Macy's Rethinking Brooklyn Unit's Future". Women's Wear Daily .
  29. ↑ Morris, Keiko (April 7, 2016). "Brooklyn Macy's Is Set for a Major Renovation". Wall Street Journal. ISSN   0099-9660 . Retrieved November 11, 2017.
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