 | |
| Industry | Retail |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1893 |
| Defunct | 1975 |
| Fate | Liquidation |
| Headquarters | Washington, D.C., U.S. |
| Products | General Merchandise |
| Parent | L. S. Good and Co. |
S. Kann Sons Co., or more commonly Kann's was a department store based in Washington, D.C. It was the city's second department store and pioneered the one-price policy and "the customer is always right" concept in retailing on the Washington, D.C. retail scene. The stores allowed consumers to return goods for cash.
The company was founded in Washington, D.C. in 1893, by Louis, Solomon, and Sigmund Kann. The Baltimore family originally came to Washington in 1890, to liquidate Abe Kaufman's store at 909 Pennsylvania Ave., NW, and returned to establish a permanent business. The store remained family owned until 1971, when it was sold to L. S. Good and Co. in Wheeling, West Virginia. The company closed in 1975. [1] [2]
The main store of S. Kann Sons Co. was located at 8th Street and Market Place, N.W., at Pennsylvania Avenue, in Washington, D.C.'s downtown shopping district. After founding at this location in 1893, the company expanded into neighboring storefronts until 1913, when it embarked on a major expansion to four stories and creation of a public dining room. [3] In 1959, the company received approval from the Fine Arts Commission, to integrate its disparate 19th Century storefronts with anodized aluminum sheeting, as part of a $500,000 renovation and modernization project. [4] After its closing in 1975, the store remained vacant until purchased for $4.275 million in 1978, by the Pennsylvania Avenue Development Corporation (PADC). The PADC purchased the site for redevelopment as housing. [5] On March 31, 1979, a fire at the flagship store resulted in its immediate demolition. At a hearing before the U.S. Senate, D.C. fire marshal Carmel Del Bazo reported to Senator Patrick Leahy that "the possibility of an accidental cause of the fire is excluded." [6] After demolition, the site immediately across from the National Archives Building remained vacant until redeveloped as Market Square in the early 1990s.
Kann's was the second Washington D.C. based department store chain to open a suburban location in nearby Northern Virginia. Just two weeks after the Hecht Company opened its store at Parkington Shopping Center, on November 16, 1951, Kann's opened its store at N. Fairfax Drive and N. Kirkwood Rd., in Arlington County, Virginia. The $4.5 million, 3 story store, known as Kann's Virginia, opened in conjunction with the neighboring Virginia Square Shopping Center. At opening, the store featured imported squirrel monkeys from Brazil named Teeny, Weeny, Eeny, and Miney to entertain children in the shoe department; a package assembly system using conveyor belts; "Kannteen" restaurant; customer lounge; and hospital room with nurse in attendance. [7] After closing in 1975, the store was acquired in 1979, by George Mason University, which used the building for its Arlington campus. The building was used first for the law school and later for the School of Public Policy. The building was demolished in 2021. [8]
Crystal City is an urban neighborhood in the southeastern corner of Arlington County, Virginia, south of Downtown Washington, D.C. Due to its extensive integration of office buildings and residential high-rise buildings using underground corridors, travel between stores, offices, and residences, it is possible to travel much of the neighborhood without going above ground, making at least part of Crystal City an underground city.
Ballston is a neighborhood in Arlington County, Virginia. Ballston is located at the western end of the Rosslyn-Ballston corridor. It is a major transportation hub and boasts one of the nation's highest concentrations of scientific research agencies, including the Office of Naval Research, Virginia Tech's Advanced Research Institute, and the Air Force Office of Scientific Research.
Clarendon is an urbanized, upper-class neighborhood in Arlington County, Virginia, located between the Rosslyn area and the Ballston area. It was named after Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon, a leading statesman and historian of the English Civil War. The main thoroughfares are Wilson Boulevard and Clarendon Boulevard.
Hecht's, also known as Hecht Brothers, Hecht Bros. and The Hecht Company, was a large chain of department stores that operated mainly in the mid-Atlantic and southern region of the United States. The firm originated in Baltimore, Maryland.
Woodward & Lothrop was a department store chain headquartered in Washington, D.C. that began as the capital's first department store in 1887. Woodies, as it was often nicknamed, maintained stores in the Mid-Atlantic United States. Its flagship store was a fixture of Washington, D.C.'s downtown shopping district, competing with Garfinckel's and acquiring Palais Royal. The chain filed for bankruptcy in January 1994 and completed liquidation in November 1995, with most locations sold to either J. C. Penney or May Department Stores Company. The flagship building is a D.C. historic landmark that became the center of controversy over competing visions for DC's urban renewal after the chain's demise, and the former service warehouse in the city's northeast is also listed as a landmark.
Hess's was a department store chain based in Allentown, Pennsylvania. The company started in 1897 with one store, originally known as Hess Brothers, and grew to nearly 80 stores by its peak in the late 1980s. The chains stores were closed or sold off in a series of deals in the early to mid-1990s.
Penn Quarter is a neighborhood of Downtown Washington, D.C., located north of Pennsylvania Avenue, in Northwest D.C. Penn Quarter is roughly equivalent to the city's early downtown core near Pennsylvania Avenue and 7th Street NW, Penn Quarter is an entertainment and commercial hub, home to many museums, theaters, cinemas, restaurants, bars, art galleries and retail shops. Landmarks include the Capital One Arena, the National Portrait Gallery, and the Harman Center for the Arts, among others. The area is also home to a popular farmers market and several food, wine, art, and culture focused festivals.
Garfinckel's was a prominent department store chain based in Washington, D.C. that catered to a clientele of wealthy consumers. Its flagship store at 14th and F in the city's F Street shopping district is listed on the National Register. It filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in June 1990 and ceased operations that year.
Best & Co. was a department store founded in 1879 by Albert Best in New York City. The company initially sold clothing for infants and children, but later expanded to women's clothing and accessories. It was known for its "tastefully styled and proper women's clothes and its sturdy children's wear." Philip Le Boutillier served as president during the late 1930s. The store had expanded to 20 branches by 1966, when the company was acquired by McCrory's, who also operated Lerner Shops and S. Klein. In late-1970, McCrory's liquidated the company. At the time of its closing, the store had 1,200 employees.
Capital Plaza Mall was a shopping mall located at the intersection of Annapolis Road and the Baltimore–Washington Parkway in Landover Hills, Maryland. It was built between 1961 and 1963, as a regional shopping center to serve the Bladensburg and Landover area of suburban Washington, D.C. The mall was a major attraction in Prince George's County, until its slow decline that began in the 1970s. This continued until the mall's closure in 2005, and ultimately its demolition in 2007. Part of the grounds are now occupied by a Wal-Mart store.
Ballston Quarter, formerly known as Ballston Common Mall, originally opened as Parkington Shopping Center, was one of the first major suburban shopping centers in the Washington, D.C., area. It opened in 1951 and was the nation's first shopping center built around a multi-story parking garage. It is located at the intersection of Glebe Road and Wilson Boulevard in the Ballston neighborhood of Arlington County, Virginia, two blocks from Ballston–MU station on the Washington Metro's Orange and Silver lines.
Lansburgh's was a chain of department stores located in the Washington, D.C. area. The clientele were middle-income consumers.
Seven Corners Shopping Center was the first major shopping center to open in suburban Washington, D.C. It is located in Seven Corners, Fairfax County, Virginia. At its opening in 1956, it was the largest regional shopping center in Virginia. The backsplit two-story mall structure was razed in the mid-1990s and replaced with a dual ground level power center.
The Village at Shirlington opened as Shirlington Shopping Center in 1944, and was the first large shopping center to open in the Washington, D.C. suburbs and one of the earliest in the United States. It is located along Campbell Avenue at the intersection of Shirley Highway and Quaker Lane / Shirlington Road in Arlington, Virginia. The center has been known since the mid-1980s as The Village at Shirlington.
The Holyoke Building is a historic building located in downtown Seattle, Washington. It is a substantial five story brick structure with stone trimmings. Construction began at the corner of First Avenue and Spring Streets just before the Great Seattle fire of 1889. Completed in early 1890, it was among the first permanent buildings completed and ready for occupancy in downtown Seattle following the fire. Today the Holyoke Building is one of the very few such buildings still standing in Seattle outside of the Pioneer Square district and is a historic remnant of the northward expansion of Seattle's business district between the time of the great fire and the Yukon Gold Rush in 1897.
Vlastimil Koubek was a Czech American architect who designed more than 100 buildings, most of them in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area. When he died, he had designed buildings worth more than $2 billion. Most of his work is Modernist in style, although he developed a few structures in other vernaculars. He created the site plan for the redevelopment of Rosslyn, Virginia, and his Ames Center anchored the area's economic recovery. He also designed the World Building in Silver Spring, Maryland, which sparked redevelopment of that town's downtown and the L'Enfant Plaza Hotel in Washington, D.C., amongst many other buildings. In 1985, Washingtonian magazine considered him to be one of 20 people "who in the past 20 years had the greatest impact on the way we live and who forever altered the look of Washington." In 1988, The Washington Post newspaper said his Willard Hotel renovation was one of 28 projects in the area which made a signal contribution to the "feel" and look of Washington, D.C.
The Zollinger-Harned Company Building, now known as The Sovereign Building, is an historic department store building in Allentown, Pennsylvania.
The Virginia Square Shopping Center in Arlington County, Virginia, United States opened in early 1952, to complement the adjoining Kann's-Virginia store. At opening, the 15-store center included a Giant supermarket, People's Drug, Fanny Farmer candy, L. Frank Co. women's apparel, Jonas men's apparel, the Bo Peep Shop, and Mary Baynes Gift Shop. An F.W. Woolworth variety store also operated at the center. Following the 1975 closure of the Kann's-Virginia and Kimel's Furniture Store, the center entered into a period of decline. In March 1986, the Virginia Square retail landmark Mary Baynes Gift Shop closed its doors. Redevelopment of the Center, talked about for almost a decade, finally commenced in Summer 1988, when the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation demolished the old center and erected a new satellite office and other buildings on the site.
Little Saigon is the Vietnamese ethnic enclave in the Clarendon neighborhood of Arlington, Virginia, which served the large refugee population that immigrated after the Fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975. One of many Little Saigons in the U.S., this neighborhood near Washington, D.C., became a hub of Vietnamese commerce and social activity, and reached its peak during the late 1970s to the early 1980s. The opening of the Clarendon station on the Washington Metro's Orange Line led to new development, generating higher rents, and businesses closed or relocated, notably to the nearby Eden Center.
Parts of F Street and 7th Street, N.W. and nearby blocks have historically been the heart of the Washington, D.C. Downtown shopping district. In the first half of the 20th century there were numerous upscale large department stores along and near F Street, while 7th Street housed more economical emporia and large retail furniture stores. The F street corridor stretches west from Downtown's Penn Quarter and Gallery Place towards 15th Street, while the 7th Street corridor includes the neighborhoods of Penn Quarter, Chinatown and Mount Vernon Square, and extends up to the border of Shaw.