Gimbels Has It! by Lisicky Michael J

Author:Lisicky, Michael J. [Lisicky, Michael J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The History Press
Published: 2012-11-26T00:00:00+00:00

The main floor of the New York Gimbels in 1951 after the renovation by Raymond Loewy. Courtesy of the Milwaukee County Historical Society.

The cover of a directory of the Pittsburgh Gimbels from the 1950s. Collection of the author.

A famous exterior photograph of the New York Gimbels. Collection of the author.

In the 1950s, downtown department store sales numbers peaked all across the country. Many people wanted to live the American dream and began to leave cities to own houses in the suburbs. Successful department stores followed their fleeing customers and set up opulent branch stores in the suburbs. As the shopping experience slowly turned from the era of browsing and socializing to the era of convenience, department stores had to adapt to their changing customer base in order to survive.

Gimbels Basement Store sales continued to be an important part of the company’s operations. The New York Basement Store was the first of its kind in the city and rumored to be the largest of its kind in the world. The Basement attracted “value-conscious” shoppers, and by the 1950s, the basement accounted for from one-fifth to one-fourth of the store’s total business.72 Years later, humorist Art Buchwald famously said that the suit-making shops in Hong Kong “looked like Gimbels’ basement on a Saturday afternoon before Father’s Day.”

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