Swelldom was a large women's clothing store variously described as a "cloak and suit house" and a "department store", operating from 1906 until the 1970s in California. It had locations on Broadway in Downtown Los Angeles' shopping district, later on Wilshire Blvd. at Camden in Beverly Hills, and near Union Square in San Francisco.
Harry Goldberg founded Swelldom.
Goldberg's first location opened as the Swelldom Cloak and Suit Shop in 1906 at 521 S. Broadway.
In 1912, Swelldom secured a lease on 535 S. Broadway which it would occupy starting in 1914. [1]
In November 1920, Swelldom moved into a new store at the northwest corner of Broadway and Sixth which it promoted as "The New Swelldom Beautiful". [2] [3]
The Broadway & 6th location was expanded and extensively renovated in 1925. [4] This building is sometimes known as the Sun Drug Company Building, Pierpont Davis was the architect, listed on the NRHP as the "Swelldom Department Store" building. [5]
With Silverwoods on the southeast corner and Mullen & Bluett on the northeast corner of the intersection — both two of the city's prominent men's specialty stores that would both spawn chains across Southern California — Swelldom advertised during this era with the byline "The Women's Corner".
In January 1946, Swelldom renovated the location again and promoted the "New Swelldom".
Swelldom opened a Beverly Hills branch on Wilshire Boulevard at Camden Drive on September 9, 1943. [6] With Saks Fifth Avenue having opened there in 1930 and the city's wealthy moving ever westward, Beverly Hills had taken over from Hollywood Boulevard as the main suburban upscale fashion district, rivaling Seventh Street downtown. The branch operated into the 1950s. [7]
In 1908 the firm opened a temporary store on Fillmore Street in San Francisco, and on May 17, 1909 a Swelldom opened an elaborate, complete store on 136–144 Grant Avenue between Post and Geary near Union Square, San Francisco. [8] At that time Swelldom positioned itself as offering "high-grade, exclusive apparel at moderate prices".
Brown Derby was a chain of restaurants in Los Angeles, California. The first and best known was shaped like a derby hat, an iconic image that became synonymous with the Golden Age of Hollywood. It was opened by Wilson Mizner in 1926. The chain was started by Robert H. Cobb and Herbert K. Somborn in the 1920s. The original Brown Derby restaurants had closed or had been converted to other uses by the 1980s, though a Disney-backed Brown Derby national franchising program revived the brand in the 21st century. It is often incorrectly thought that the Brown Derby was a single restaurant, and the Wilshire Boulevard and Hollywood branches are frequently confused.
W. & J. Sloane,, was a chain of furniture stores that originated from a luxury furniture and rug store in New York City that catered to the prominent, including the White House and the Breakers, and wealthy, including the Rockefeller, Whitney, and Vanderbilt families.
Wilshire Boulevard (['wɪɫ.ʃɚ]) is a prominent 15.83 mi (25.48 km) boulevard in the Los Angeles area of Southern California, extending from Ocean Avenue in the city of Santa Monica east to Grand Avenue in the Financial District of downtown Los Angeles. One of the principal east–west arterial roads of Los Angeles, it is also one of the major city streets through the city of Beverly Hills. Wilshire Boulevard runs roughly parallel to Santa Monica Boulevard from Santa Monica to the west boundary of Beverly Hills. From the east boundary, it runs a block south of Sixth Street to its terminus.
Broadway, until 1890 Fort Street, is a thoroughfare in Los Angeles County, California, United States. The portion of Broadway from 3rd to 9th streets, in the Historic Core of Downtown Los Angeles, was the city's main commercial street from the 1910s until World War II, and is the location of the Broadway Theater and Commercial District, the first and largest historic theater district listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP). With twelve movie palaces located along a six-block stretch of Broadway, it is the only large concentration of movie palaces left in the United States.
Stiles Oliver Clements was an architect practicing in Los Angeles and Southern California.
The Financial District is the central business district of Los Angeles along Olive, Grand, Hope, Flower and Figueroa streets from 4th Street to 8th Street. It is south of the Bunker Hill district, west of the Historic Core, north of South Park and east of the Harbor Freeway and Central City West. Like Bunker Hill, the Financial District is home to corporate office skyscrapers, hotels and related services as well as banks, law firms, and real estate companies. However, unlike Bunker Hill which was razed and now consists of buildings constructed since the 1960s, it contains large buildings from the early 20th century, particularly along Seventh Street, once the city's upscale shopping street; the area also attracts visitors as the 7th and Flower area is at the center of the regional Metro rail system and is replete with restaurants, bars, and shopping at two urban malls.
John and Donald Parkinson were a father-and-son architectural firm operating in the Los Angeles area in the early 20th century. They designed and built many of the city's iconic buildings, including Grand Central Market, the Memorial Coliseum and the City Hall.
J. W. Robinson Co., Robinson's, was a chain of department stores operating in the Southern California and Arizona area, previously with headquarters in Los Angeles, California.
Bullock's was a chain of full-line department stores from 1907 through 1995, headquartered in Los Angeles, growing to operate across California, Arizona and Nevada. Bullock's also operated as many as seven more upscale Bullocks Wilshire specialty department stores across Southern California. Many former Bullock's locations continue to operate today as Macy's.
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 Broadway was a mid-level department store chain headquartered in Los Angeles, California. Founded in 1896 by English-born Arthur Letts Sr., and named after what was once the city's main shopping street, the Broadway became a dominant retailer in Southern California and the Southwest. Its fortunes eventually declined, and Federated Department Stores bought the chain in 1995. In 1996, Broadway stores were either closed or converted into Macy's and Bloomingdales.
May Company California was an American 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.
Bond Clothing Stores, Bond Clothes, Bond Clothiers, or Bond Stores, was a men's clothing manufacturing company and retailer. The company catered to the middle-class consumer.
Haggarty's was a department store chain founded in Los Angeles in 1906, which closed in May 1970 due to not keeping up with fashion trends and a resulting $4.4 million in debts. It had more than a dozen branches at its peak.
Coulter's was a department store that originated in Downtown Los Angeles and later moved to the Miracle Mile shopping district in that same city.
Mullen & Bluett was a Los Angeles-based department store specializing in men's clothing.
7th Street is a street in Los Angeles, California running from S. Norton Ave in Mid-Wilshire through Downtown Los Angeles. It goes all the way to the eastern city limits at Indiana Ave., and the border between Boyle Heights, Los Angeles and East Los Angeles.
Reich and Lièvre was a chain of stores across California in the early 1900s, focusing on upscale women's apparel, a format known at the time as "cloak and suit shops". Founded by Maurice Reich and real estate broker George Lièvre and based in San Francisco, it had multiple branch locations in that city as well as Oakland, San José, Sacramento, Stockton, Fresno, Los Angeles and San Diego.
Robertson Company also known as Robertson's department store and originally C.R.S. was the first department store in Hollywood, opened as Hollywood Boulevard became a major regional shopping district starting in the 1920s, second only to Broadway in Downtown Los Angeles.
Retail in Southern California dates back to its first dry goods store that Jonathan Temple opened in 1827 on Calle Principal, when Los Angeles was still a Mexican village. After the American conquest, as the pueblo grew into a small town surpassing 4,000 population in 1860, dry goods stores continued to open, including the forerunners of what would be local chains. Larger retailers moved progressively further south to the 1880s-1890s Central Business District, which was later razed to become the Civic Center. Starting in the mid-1890s, major stores moved ever southward, first onto Broadway around 3rd, then starting in 1905 to Broadway between 4th and 9th, then starting in 1915 westward onto West Seventh Street up to Figueroa. For half a century Broadway and Seventh streets together formed one of America's largest and busiest downtown shopping districts.