| Sears Roebuck & Company Department Store | |
|---|---|
 The building from the corner of Beverly Rd. and Bedford Ave., 2019 | |
 | |
| Coordinates | 40°38′42″N73°57′19″W / 40.645138°N 73.955416°W |
| Built | 1932 |
| Architect | Nimmons, Carr & Wright, with Alton L. Craft |
| Architectural style(s) | Art Deco |
| Designated | May 15, 2012 |
| Reference no. | 2469 |
The Sears Roebuck & Company Department Store is a landmarked former department store in the Flatbush neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York City.
The Sears Roebuck & Company Department Store is an Art Deco edifice of three stories, plus a 103-foot tower. The building is situated at the corner of Beverly Road and Beford Avenue in an L shape, with nine bays of grouped windows or entrances along Bedford and four along Beverly. Each window bay had a large display window, while the entrance bays are flanked by limestone piers and decorative spandrel panels that draw the eyes upward. The entrances are recessed to protect customers from inclement weather. [1]
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The town of Flatbush was annexed by the neighboring city of Brooklyn in 1894. [2] In the subsequent decades the area saw intense development, spurred by increasing transit. By the 1920s the intersection of Church and Flatbush Avenues was a busy commercial area. [3] Having started with mail order sales, Sears, Roebuck and Co. expanded to retail operations in 1925; by 1929 it was the third-largest retailer in the country, and it continued growing through the subsequent Great Depression. [1]
Sears opened its first retail store in New York City in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn in 1930. They announced a new flagship store for the location at Bedford Avenue and Beverly Road in March 1932; the site was near the busy commercial area on Flatbush Avenue, and its location was chosen to target the "motoring shopper"—land in the area was cheaper than congested downtown Brooklyn, and it was centrally located between the established, older neighborhoods to the north and the developing, car-equipped southern regions. [1] Originally, the site was to have occupied two blocks, separated by the course of East 23rd St.; the road was not extended, and the blocks were merged. [1]
The site was originally occupied by roughly ten homes and car barns. [4] The Cheshill Realty Corporation acquired 25 parcels for the store through private negotiations in 1931–1932; the Brooklyn Eagle called the purchases the "Flatbush mystery". The announcement of the new store, coinciding with two others in Union City and Hackensack, New Jersey, was only made once all the land had been purchased. [1]
The building was made a New York City designated landmark in 2012. [5] At this point, Sears was in dire financial straits; the company had merged with Kmart a few years earlier amid increasing competition from ecommerce, and under chief executive Eddie Lampert started spinning off brands and selling stores. In 2018, the company filed for bankruptcy protection, [6] and the store would become the final open Sears location in New York City. [7]
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the parking lot served as a drive-thru testing area. [7] In November 2021, the Sears closed. [8] [9] Although the landmarked building is protected from demolition, Clipper Equity announced plans to build two seven-story buildings on the remainder of the site, with 650 residential units between them. [10] In March 2024, Clipper Equity received a $24 million loan for the redevelopment. [11] [12] Clipper also received $300 million from an undisclosed source that April [13] [14] and a $95 million loan from Bank Hapoalim that June. [15]
Sears, Roebuck and Co., commonly known as Sears, is an American chain of department stores founded in 1892 by Richard Warren Sears and Alvah Curtis Roebuck and reincorporated in 1906 by Richard Sears and Julius Rosenwald, with what began as a mail ordering catalog company migrating to opening retail locations in 1925, the first in Chicago. In 2005, the company was bought by the management of the American big box discount chain Kmart, which upon completion of the merger, formed Sears Holdings. Through the 1980s, Sears was the largest retailer in the United States. In 2018, it was the 31st-largest. After several years of declining sales, Sears's parent company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on October 15, 2018. It announced on January 16, 2019, that it had won its bankruptcy auction, and that a reduced number of 425 stores would remain open, including 223 Sears stores.
Flatbush is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. The neighborhood consists of several subsections in central Brooklyn and is generally bounded by Prospect Park to the north, East Flatbush to the east, Midwood to the south, and Kensington and Parkville to the west. The modern neighborhood includes or borders several institutions of note, including Brooklyn College.
The Beverly Road station is a station on the IRT Nostrand Avenue Line of the New York City Subway. It is located at the intersection of Beverley Road and Nostrand Avenue straddling the East Flatbush and Flatbush communities. The station is served by the 2 train at all times and the 5 train on weekdays.
East Flatbush is a residential neighborhood in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. East Flatbush is bounded by Crown Heights and Empire Boulevard to the north; Brownsville and East 98th Street to the east; Flatlands, Canarsie and the Long Island Rail Road's Bay Ridge Branch to the south; and the neighborhood of Flatbush and New York Avenue to the west. East Flatbush is a predominantly African American neighborhood and has a population of 135,619 as of the 2010 United States census.
Windsor Terrace is a small residential neighborhood in the central part of the New York City borough of Brooklyn. It is bounded by Prospect Park on the east and northeast, Park Slope at Prospect Park West, Green-Wood Cemetery, and Borough Park at McDonald Avenue on the northwest, west, and southwest, and Kensington at Caton Avenue on the south. As of the 2010 United States Census, Windsor Terrace had 20,988 people living within its 0.503-square-mile (1.30 km2) area.
T.B. Ackerson Company was a real estate development company that built several planned communities in the New York metropolitan area during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Flatbush Avenue is a major avenue in the New York City Borough of Brooklyn. It runs from the Manhattan Bridge south-southeastward to Jamaica Bay, where it joins the Marine Parkway–Gil Hodges Memorial Bridge, which connects Brooklyn to the Rockaway Peninsula in Queens. The north end was extended from Fulton Street to the Manhattan Bridge as "Flatbush Avenue Extension".
Fulton Street is a long east–west street in northern Brooklyn, New York City. This street begins at the intersection of Adams Street and Joralemon Street in Brooklyn Heights, and runs eastward to East New York and Cypress Hills. At the border with Queens, Fulton Street becomes 91st Avenue, which ends at 84th Street in Woodhaven.
The Avenue H station is a local station on the BMT Brighton Line of the New York City Subway. It is located at Avenue H between East 15th and East 16th Streets near the border of Midwood and Flatbush, Brooklyn. The station is served by the Q train at all times. It is also served by the B train on weekdays until early 2025.
The Landmark Center or 401 Park Building in Boston, Massachusetts is a commercial center situated in a limestone and brick art deco building built in 1928 for Sears, Roebuck and Company. It features a 200-foot-tall (61 m) tower and, as Sears Roebuck and Company Mail Order Store, it is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and designated as a Boston Landmark in 1989.
Clipper Equity LLC is a partnership led by David Bistricer and Sam Levinson. The firm owns more than 60 buildings, with thousands of residential units, in New York and New Jersey. The partnership are known for their attempted purchase of the Starrett City housing complex in Brooklyn, New York, for $1.3 billion on February 8, 2007 in one of the largest real estate transactions in history. New York's Mayor Michael Bloomberg expressed concerns over the new landlord's history of building violations.
Sears, Roebuck and Company Department Store or
Sears Roebuck and Company Mail Order Store or
Sears, Roebuck & Company Mail Order Building or
Sears, Roebuck and Company Warehouse Building or variations may refer to:
Ponce City Market is a mixed-use development located in a former Sears catalogue facility in Atlanta, with national and local retail anchors, restaurants, a food hall, boutiques and offices, and residential units. It is located adjacent to the intersection of the BeltLine with Ponce de Leon Avenue in the Old Fourth Ward near Virginia Highland, Poncey-Highland and Midtown neighborhoods. The 2.1-million-square-foot (200,000 m2) building, one of the largest by volume in the Southeast United States, was used by Sears, Roebuck and Co. from 1926 to 1987 and later by the City of Atlanta as "City Hall East". The building's lot covers 16 acres (65,000 m2). Ponce City Market officially opened on August 25, 2014. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2016.
The Siegel-Cooper Company was a department store that opened in Chicago in 1887 and expanded into New York City in 1896. At the time of its opening, the New York store was the largest in the world.
David Bistricer is a New York-based real estate developer and the founder and principal of Clipper Equity. His firm focuses on the conversion of non-residential buildings to residential uses. One of Bistricer's latest ventures, in partnership with Chetrit Group, is the transformation of the shuttered four-building Cabrini Medical Center at 220 and 230 East 20th Street and 215 and 225 East 19th Street into a residential a condo project, Gramercy Square, with 223 units. The Woods Bagot-designed development features a different style for each property: a modern, a prewar, a boutique and a tower building. It also has about 38,000 square feet of amenities including a 75' sky-lit pool, a gym, a theater, a meditation room exclusively programmed by MNDFL and a wine cellar. And there's ample green space with a courtyard, a greenhouse and landscaping around the buildings.
The Brooklyn Tower is a supertall mixed-use, primarily residential skyscraper in the Downtown Brooklyn neighborhood of New York City. Developed by JDS Development Group, it is situated on the north side of DeKalb Avenue near Flatbush Avenue. The main portion of the skyscraper is a 74-story, 1,066-foot (325 m) residential structure designed by SHoP Architects and built from 2018 to 2022. Preserved at the skyscraper's base is the Dime Savings Bank Building, designed by Mowbray and Uffinger, which dates to the 1900s.
Art Deco architecture flourished in New York City during the 1920s and 1930s. The style broke with many traditional architectural conventions and was characterized by verticality, ornamentation, and building materials such as plastics, metals, and terra cotta. Art Deco is found in government edifices, commercial projects, and residential buildings in all five boroughs. The architecture of the period was influenced by worldwide decorative arts trends, the rise of mechanization, and New York City's 1916 Zoning Resolution, which favored the setback feature in many buildings.
The Willink Entrance area, also known as Willink Plaza, is a major urban square of Brooklyn, New York City, formed by the intersection of Flatbush Avenue, Ocean Avenue and Empire Boulevard, at the eastern corner of Prospect Park and the southern corner of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. It is serviced by the New York City Subway's Prospect Park station, and features several public spaces and historic buildings. This location is considered the northwestern point of the Prospect Lefferts Gardens neighborhood of Flatbush, and adjoins Crown Heights to its northeast.
The BellTel Lofts is a mostly residential building at 101 Willoughby Street and 365 Bridge Street in the Downtown Brooklyn neighborhood of New York City. Constructed from 1929 to 1931 as the headquarters for the New York Telephone Company, it is located at the northeast corner of Willoughby and Bridge Streets. It was one of several Art Deco-style telecommunications buildings designed by Ralph Thomas Walker of Voorhees, Gmelin and Walker in the early 20th century. The building was renovated into a residential complex in the mid-2000s.