Gimbel's
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Gimbel's, now defunct, was for many years a well-known U.S. department store.
History
The company, founded by a young Bavarian immigrant, Adam Gimbel, began as a general store in Vincennes, Indiana. After a brief stay in Danville, Illinois, Gimbel relocated in 1887 to the then-boom-town of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. While the new store was an immense success, quickly becoming the leading department store in Milwaukee, Adam Gimbel, with seven sons (and another adopted), saw that one store, no matter how successful, would not accommodate his family's future.With, as a joke of the time put it, "a surplus of capital and a surplus of Gimbels," in 1894 he acquired the Granville Haines store in Philadelphia, and in 1910 opened another branch in New York City. With its arrival in New York, Gimbel's prospered, and soon became the primary rival to the leading Herald Square retailer, Macy's. This rivalry entered into the popular argot: "Would Macy's tell Gimbel's?" To distinguish itself from its Herald Square neighbors, Gimbel's advertising promised more: "Select, don't settle."
This was so successful that in 1922 the chain went "public," offering shares on the New York Stock Exchange (though the family retained control.) This provided the capital for expansion, starting with the 1923 purchase of across-the-street rival, Saks & Co., which operated under the name "Saks Thirty-Fourth Street"; with ownership of Saks came a new, about-to-open uptown branch, Saks Fifth Avenue. In 1924 another Gimbel's store was opened in Pittsburgh; while there was talk of a nation-wide chain, such hopes were ended by the Great Depression. The more-upscale (and enormously profitable) Saks Fifth Avenue stores did continue to expand in the 1930s, opening branches in Chicago, Boston and San Francisco.
Despite its limited presence, Gimbel's was well known nation-wide, in part due to the carefully-cultivated rivalry with Macy's, but also thanks to an endless stream of publicity. The New York store got considerable attention as the site of the 1939-40 sale of art and antiquities from the William Randolph Hearst collection. Gimbel's also got an abundance of publicity from the 1947 film Miracle on 34th Street. (An homage to the film was paid in the 2003 comedy film Elf which offered "Gimbel's" as the fictional setting of the title-character's workplace.)
Gimbel's New York flagship was located in the cluster of large department stores that surrounded Herald Square. Designed by architect Daniel Burnham, the structure, which once offered 27 acres of selling space, has since been severely modernized and now houses the Manhattan Mall. When this building opened in 1910, a major selling point was its many doors leading to the Herald Square subway station; thanks to such easy access, by the time Gimbel's closed in 1987 this store had the highest rate of "shrinkage," or shoplifting losses, in the world. After conversion to the Manhattan Mall, parts of the former store were occupied by a mid-town branch of Brooklyn's Abraham & Straus and still later by Stern's. The building that housed a Gimbel's branch at 87th Street and Lexington Avenue remains, but has been converted to luxury apartments.
Gimbel's was acquired in the 1970s by BATUS, the American retailing arm of British-American Tobacco, which eventually owned Marshall Field's, Frederick & Nelson, The Crescent stores, and Kohl's.
BATUS organized the Gimbel's chain into four autonomous divisions: Gimbel's New York, Gimbel's Philadelphia, Gimbel's Pittsburgh, and Gimbel's Milwaukee. Each division operated independently of each other in terms of advertising and buying. Each division offered their own credit card which could only be used at another Gimbel's store in that same division. The credit card was not accepted at other Gimbel's stores outside of that division. Example, a Gimbel's credit card customer in the Pittsburgh area could not use their Gimbel's credit card in the Philadelphia or New York division stores.
Unable to create a strong identity for this collection, BATUS in 1986 sold the Kohl's stores to A&P and, unable to find a buyer, closed down the unprofitable Gimbel chain. Some of the more attractive branches were taken over by Stern's, Pomeroy's (Allied Stores), Kaufmann's (May Department Stores), or Boston Store (P.A. Bergner & Co.) The "cornerstone" of the chain, the downtown Milwaukee store where Adam Gimbel had first found success, (and alleged to be the most profitable Gimbel store), was handed to former BATUS sister-division Marshall Field's. After a few uncomfortable years trying to be a mass-market retailer, Fields gave up in 1997, closing the Milwaukee store and selling off the remaining Gimbel's branches it held, except for the Hilldale store in Madison, WI, which will become Macy's in September 2006.
The "Gimbel's" trademark is currently owned by siblings Mark and Beth Gimbel; Mark Gimbel is owner of the Smiling Cow and Gimbel's Country Store in Boothbay Harbor, Maine. They acquired the trademark in 1999 after Gimbel's department stores went out of business and the trademark was abandoned.
Partial list of former Gimbel's locations
New York
Gimbel's New York
- Herald Square, Manhattan (became Abraham & Straus, later Stern's, now Manhattan Mall)
- Roosevelt Field Mall, Garden City (became Stern's, now Dick's Sporting Goods and Bloomingdale's Furniture Store)
- Bar Harbor Shopping Center, Massapequa (demolished)
- Cross County Shopping Center, Yonkers (became Stern's, now Macy's)
- Green Acres Mall, Valley Stream (became Abraham & Straus, now Macy's)
- Gimbel's East East 86th Street, Manhattan
Connecticut
Gimbel's New York
- High Ridge Plaza, 111 High Ridge Road, Stamford, CT,
- Lafayette Plaza, Bridgeport, CT
New Jersey
Gimbel's New York
- Garden State Plaza, Paramus (became Hahne's, now Nordstrom)
Gimbel's Philadelphia
- Moorestown Mall, Moorestown (became Stern's, then Ports Of The World, now Boscov's)
- Echelon Mall, Voorhees (Originally Lit Brothers, became Stern's, now Boscov's)
Pennsylvania
Gimbel's Pittsburgh
- Downtown Pittsburgh, Smithfield Street and Sixth Avenue (now being put to many uses, including Barnes and Noble, Eckerd, and Burlington Coat Factory
- North Hills Village, Ross Township/Pittsburgh (became Hill's, then Ames, now Burlington Coat Factory)
- Beaver Valley Mall, Monaca (became Kaufmann's, soon to be Macy's)
- Eastland Mall, East McKeesport (entire mall now closed)
- Ross Park Mall, North Hills/Pittsburgh -This was the very last Gimbel's store to be built in the Pittsburgh division. Gimbel's had not yet opened this store when the chain was put up for sale. (it was purchased by Associated Dry Goods for their Pittsburgh based Joseph Horne division. When the May Department Stores purchased Associated Dry Goods, the Joseph Horne Company was sold to a group of local investors. After several years, the Joseph Horne chain was dismantled and sold with the Ohio stores going to Dillards, and the Pennsylvania stores going to Federated. This location became a Lazarus, now Macy's, closed on March 31, 2006 and Macy's will relocate into the larger Kaufmann's location in the mall.) In April 2006, it was announced that this former Gimbels/Joseph Horne/Lazarus/Macy's location would be demolished and replaced by a newly built Nordstrom - their first Pittsburgh location.
- South Hills Village, Upper St. Clair (became Kaufmann's, closed March 2006 by Federated as there is already a Macy's in this mall - this space was then leased to Boscov's beginning in the fall of 2006)
- Monroeville Mall, Monroeville (became Kaufmann's, closed March 2006 by Federated as there is already a Macy's in this mall. The space was then leased to Boscov's beginning in the fall of 2006)
- Century III Mall, West Mifflin/Pittsburgh - (interestingly enough this location was operated as a Gimbels AFTER the chain was sold off. A Ohio retailer, who specialized in close-out retailing, bought this one location, and attempted to operate it as a Gimbels. However; the owners of the mall filed suit, saying that the current owners of this particular Gimbel's store were operating it as a close-out store, and NOT as a department store which was what was specified in the lease agreement. The suit was dismissed when the store eventually closed - about a year and a half AFTER all of the other Gimbel's stores were shuttered. So, officially, this location was the very last Gimbels store in the country to be closed).
Gimbel's Philadelphia
- Harrisburg East Mall, Harrisburg (became Hess's, now Hecht's, soon to be Macy's)
- The Plaza at King of Prussia, King of Prussia (became Stern's, now JCPenney)
- Park City Center, Lancaster (became Pomeroy's, now Boscov's)
- Oxford Valley Mall, Langhorne (became Stern's, now Sears)
- Bustelton and Cottman, Philadelphia (became Stern's, now Sears)
- Granite Run Mall, Media (became Stern's, now Boscov's)
- Gallery at Market East, Philadelphia (Replaced original store on SE corner of 9th and Market Street, became Stern's, then Clover, now K Mart)
Wisconsin
Gimbel's Milwaukee
- Hilldale, Madison (opened 1962, converted to Marshall Field's 1986, will convert to Macy's in 2006)
- East Towne Mall, Madison (sold to P.A. Bergner's Boston Store 1986, closed 2003, store demolished during mall redevelopment)
- Northridge Mall, Milwaukee (converted to Marshall Field's 1986, sold to Prange's 1989, Prange's sold to Younkers 1992, closed 2000; mall closed and being redeveloped)
- Southridge Mall, Greenfield (converted to Marshall Field's 1986, sold to Prange's 1989, Prange's sold to Younkers 1992, closed 2000; divided into Linens 'n Things and Steve & Barry's University Sportswear)
- Mayfair Mall, Wauwatosa (sold to P.A. Bergner's Boston Store 1986, as Marshall Field's already had a store there)
- Downtown Milwaukee (Grand Avenue), Milwaukee (converted to Marshall Field's 1986, closed 1997; now partitioned into offices, apartments, and a Borders)
- Southgate Mall, Milwaukee (sold to P.A. Bergner's Boston store 1986, closed 1993)
- Downtown Appleton, Appleton (opened 1971, converted to Marshall Field's 1986, closed in 1991 with opening of Dayton's Fox River Mall)
- Packard Plaza, Cudahy (close 1986, partitioned into several smaller stores)
References
- Harris, Leon. Merchant Princes. New York: Harper & Row, 1979.
- Mahoney, Tom, and Leonard Sloane. The Great Merchants: America's Foremost Retail Institutions and the People Who Made Them Great. New York: Harper & Row, 1974.
- Clark, Sara. ["Gimbel's of Maine Goes Hollywood"], Boothbay Register, December 4, 2003.
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