The Key System was a privately owned company that provided mass transit in the cities of Oakland, Berkeley, Alameda, Emeryville, Piedmont, San Leandro, Richmond, Albany, and El Cerrito in the eastern San Francisco Bay Area from 1903 until 1960, when it was sold to a newly formed public agency, AC Transit. The Key System consisted of local streetcar and bus lines in the East Bay, and commuter rail and bus lines connecting the East Bay to San Francisco by a ferry pier on San Francisco Bay, later via the lower deck of the Bay Bridge. At its height during the 1940s, the Key System had over 66 miles (106 km) of track. The local streetcars were discontinued in 1948 and the commuter trains to San Francisco were discontinued in 1958. The Key System's territory is today served by BART and AC Transit bus service.
Barneys New York Inc. was an American luxury department store brand, founded in 1923 in New York City. It introduced major luxury brands including Armani, Azzedine Alaïa, Comme des Garçons, Christian Louboutin, Gregory Herman and Ermenegildo Zegna to the US market.
Macy's West is a longtime division of Macy's, Inc., representing one of the New York-based department store chain's earliest notable acquisitions and westward expansions. Headquartered in San Francisco, California, this particular group of Macy's store locations included 258 sites by February 2, 2009, when the company announced plans to consolidate all Macy's divisions into a single division based in New York. The consolidation became effective during the second quarter of 2009.
The San Francisco Mint is a branch of the United States Mint and was opened in 1854 to serve the gold mines of the California Gold Rush. It quickly outgrew its first building and moved into a new one in 1874. This building, the Old United States Mint, also known affectionately as The Granite Lady, is one of the few that survived the great 1906 San Francisco earthquake. It served until 1937, when the present facility was opened.
I. Magnin & Company was a San Francisco, California-based high fashion and specialty goods luxury department store. Over the course of its existence, it expanded across the West into Southern California and the adjoining states of Arizona, Oregon, and Washington. In the 1970s, under Federated Department Stores ownership, the chain entered the Chicago, Illinois, and Washington, DC, metropolitan areas. Mary Ann Magnin founded the company in 1876 and named the chain after her husband, Isaac.
The Emporium, from 1980 to 1995 Emporium-Capwell, was a mid-line department store chain headquartered in San Francisco, California, which operated for 100 years—from 1896 to 1996. The flagship location on San Francisco's Market Street was a destination shopping location for decades, and several branch stores operated in the various suburbs of the Bay Area. The Emporium and its sister department store chains were acquired by Federated Department Stores in 1995, and many converted to Macy's locations.
May Company California was a chain of department stores operating in Southern California and Nevada, with headquarters in North Hollywood, California. It was a subsidiary of May Department Stores and merged with May's other Southern California subsidiary, J. W. Robinson's, in 1993 to form Robinsons-May.
Shreve, Crump & Low, a Boston, Massachusetts business, is the oldest purveyor of luxury goods in North America, responsible for trophies such as the Davis Cup and the Cy Young Award.
Bailey Banks & Biddle was a retailer of jewelry formed in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1832.
The City of Paris Dry Goods Company was one of San Francisco's most important department stores from 1850 to 1976, located diagonally opposite Union Square. In the mid-20th century it opened a few branches in other cities of the Bay Area. The main San Francisco store was demolished in 1980 after a lengthy preservation fight to build a new Neiman Marcus, although the store's original rotunda and glass dome were preserved and incorporated into the new design.
Birks Group is a designer, manufacturer and retailer of jewellery, timepieces, silverware and gifts, with stores and manufacturing facilities located in Canada and the United States. The Group was created in November 2005 through the merger of Henry Birks and Sons Ltd. (Canada) and Mayors Jewelers Inc..
The 1906 San Francisco earthquake struck the coast of Northern California at 5:12 a.m. on Wednesday, April 18 with an estimated moment magnitude of 7.9 and a maximum Mercalli intensity of XI (Extreme). High-intensity shaking was felt from Eureka on the North Coast to the Salinas Valley, an agricultural region to the south of the San Francisco Bay Area. Devastating fires soon broke out in the city and lasted for several days. More than 3,000 people died. Over 80% of the city of San Francisco was destroyed. The events are remembered as one of the worst and deadliest earthquakes in the history of the United States. The death toll remains the greatest loss of life from a natural disaster in California's history and high on the lists of American disasters.
Gump's is a luxury American home furnishings and home décor retailer, founded in 1861 in San Francisco, California. The company was acquired by the Chachas family in June 2019 and announced that it would be opening a San Francisco location for the holiday season as well as an e-commerce business.
Bayshore Mall is an indoor shopping mall in Eureka, California. It is named for its close proximity to Humboldt Bay. The large shopping facility is the only major mall located on the coast north of the San Francisco Bay Area, securing Eureka as the trading center for the entire far North Coast.
Harry Winston, Inc. is an American luxury jeweler and producer of Swiss timepieces. The company was founded in 1932 as Harry H. Winston Jewels, Inc. and changed its name to Harry Winston Inc. in January 1936. The company is named after its founder, Harry Winston, who was called by many as the "King of Diamonds".
The Phelan Building is an 11-story office building located at 760 Market Street in the Financial District of San Francisco, California. It has a triangular shape reminiscent of the Flatiron Building in Manhattan, New York City, with its tip at the meeting point of Market Street, O’Farrell Street, and Grant Avenue. It is a San Francisco Designated Landmark.
Levison Brothers / California Jewelry Co. was active from 1859 to 1935. Founded in 1859, they occupied 629 Washington Street, San Francisco, California by 1863, and by 1871 moved into two floors of their own building at 134 Sutter Street, San Francisco, furnished with machinery, tools, and appliances powered by a 25-horsepower engine.
Black, Starr & Frost is an American jewelry company. Founded in 1810, the company is the oldest continuously operating jewelry firm in the United States. The company has acted as a retailer, rather than manufacturer, for most of its history. It has had a number of notable clients, such as the Rockefellers, Vanderbilts, Carnegies, Guggenheims, Bunny Mellon, Elizabeth Taylor and Zsa Zsa Gabor.
Ville de Paris was a department store in Downtown Los Angeles from 1893 through 1919.
John O. Bellis (1872-1943) was an American silversmith and jeweler based in San Francisco, California. He was trained as a silversmith at Shreve & Co., and he designed silver plates, bowls, trays, mirrors, and brushes. He began designing jewelry in 1894. He opened a new store at 55 Geary Street in 1914.
