Swelldom was a large women's clothing store, variously described as a "cloak and suit house" and a "department store", that operated in California from 1906 until the 1970s. It had locations on Broadway in downtown Los Angeles, on Wilshire Boulevard at Camden in Beverly Hills, and near Union Square in San Francisco.
Harry Goldberg opened Swelldom's first location 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] This location was expanded and extensively renovated in 1925. [4] In January 1946, Swelldom renovated the location again and promoted the "New Swelldom". With prominent men's specialty stores Silverwoods on the southeast corner and Mullen & Bluett on the northeast corner of this same intersection Swelldom advertised with the byline "The Women's Corner".
The building Swelldom occupied at 6th and Broadway is known as either Swelldom Building or Sun Drug Company Building, with Pierpont, Davis, and Withey as architects. [5] In 1979, the building was listed as "Swelldom Building" in the National Register of Historic Places as a contributing property to the Broadway Theater and Commercial District. [6]
Swelldom opened a location Wilshire Boulevard at Camden Drive in Beverly Hills on September 9, 1943. [7] With Saks Fifth Avenue having opened in the same area in 1930, this section of Beverly Hills taken over from Hollywood Boulevard as the area's main suburban upscale fashion district, rivaling Seventh Street downtown. [8]
In 1908, Swelldom 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 near Union Square. [9] Swelldom positioned itself as offering "high-grade, exclusive apparel at moderate prices" at the time.
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.
Miracle Mile is a neighborhood in the city of Los Angeles, California.
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 It is bounded by the Harbor Freeway to the west, First Street to the north, Main and Hill Streets to the east, and Olympic Boulevard and 9th Street to the south. 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 also contains large buildings from the early 20th century, particularly along Seventh Street, once the city's upscale shopping street; the area also includes the 7th and Flower area at the center of the regional Metro rail system, restaurants, bars, and 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 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, and Washington, D.C., metropolitan areas. Mary Ann Magnin founded the company in 1876 and named the chain after her husband Isaac.
The Heinsbergen Decorating Company Building, also known as the AT Heinsbergen & Company Building, is a historic building on Beverly Boulevard in Los Angeles, California, United States. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984.
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.
Myer Siegel was a Los Angeles–based department store, founded by Myer Siegel (1866–1934), specializing in women'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.