Gimbel's
Encyclopedia
Gimbel Brothers was an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 department store
Department store
A department store is a retail establishment which satisfies a wide range of the consumer's personal and residential durable goods product needs; and at the same time offering the consumer a choice of multiple merchandise lines, at variable price points, in all product categories...

 corporation from 1887 through the late 20th century. The store is known for creating the Gimbels Thanksgiving Day Parade, the oldest parade in the country. Gimbels was also once the largest department store chain in the country. By the time of its closure in 1987, Gimbel had 36 stores throughout the United States.

Beginnings

The company, founded by a young Bavaria
Bavaria
Bavaria, formally the Free State of Bavaria is a state of Germany, located in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the largest state by area, forming almost 20% of the total land area of Germany...

n immigrant, Adam Gimbel, began as a general store in Vincennes, Indiana
Vincennes, Indiana
Vincennes is a city in and the county seat of Knox County, Indiana, United States. It is located on the Wabash River in the southwestern part of the state. The population was 18,701 at the 2000 census...

. After a brief stay in Danville, Illinois
Danville, Illinois
Danville is a city in Vermilion County, Illinois, United States. It is the principal city of the'Danville, Illinois Metropolitan Statistical Area' which encompasses all of Danville and Vermilion County. As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 32,467. It is the county seat of...

, Gimbel relocated in 1887 to the then boom-town of Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Milwaukee is the largest city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin, the 28th most populous city in the United States and 39th most populous region in the United States. It is the county seat of Milwaukee County and is located on the southwestern shore of Lake Michigan. According to 2010 census data, the...

. The new store quickly became the leading department store in Milwaukee. However, with eight sons Adam Gimbel saw that one store, no matter how successful, would not accommodate his family's future. As a joke of the time put it, he had "a surplus of capital and a surplus of Gimbels".

In 1894 Gimbel acquired the Granville Haines store in Philadelphia, and in 1910 opened another branch in New York City. With its arrival in New York, Gimbels 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 Gimbels?" To distinguish itself from Herald Square neighbors, Gimbels' advertising promised more: "Select, don't settle."

Going public

Gimbels became so successful that in 1922 the chain went public
Initial public offering
An initial public offering or stock market launch, is the first sale of stock by a private company to the public. It can be used by either small or large companies to raise expansion capital and become publicly traded enterprises...

, offering shares on the New York Stock Exchange
New York Stock Exchange
The New York Stock Exchange is a stock exchange located at 11 Wall Street in Lower Manhattan, New York City, USA. It is by far the world's largest stock exchange by market capitalization of its listed companies at 13.39 trillion as of Dec 2010...

 (though the family retained a controlling interest). The stock sales provided 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, Gimbel created an uptown branch called Saks Fifth Avenue
Saks Fifth Avenue
Saks Fifth Avenue is a luxury American specialty store owned and operated by Saks Fifth Avenue Enterprises , a subsidiary of Saks Incorporated. It competes in the high-end specialty store market in the Upper East Side of Manhattan, i.e. 'the 3 B's' Bergdorf, Barneys, Bloomingdale's and Lord & Taylor...

. In 1925 Gimbels entered the Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Pittsburgh is the second-largest city in the US Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Allegheny County. Regionally, it anchors the largest urban area of Appalachia and the Ohio River Valley, and nationally, it is the 22nd-largest urban area in the United States...

 market with its purchase of Kaufmann & Baer's. Also acquired in this transaction was Gimbels' third radio outlet, WCAE
WEAE
WDDZ is an AM radio station in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA, broadcasting at 1250 kHz with a power level of 5,000 watts. The station is an ABC owned and operated station and serves as the Pittsburgh affiliate of Radio Disney...

; the company already owned WGBS
WINS (AM)
WINS , known on-air as "Ten-Ten Wins", is a radio station in New York City, owned by CBS Radio. WINS's studios are in the combined CBS Radio facility at 345 Hudson Street in the TriBeCa section of Manhattan, and transmitting towers in Lyndhurst, New Jersey.WINS is one of the nation's oldest...

 in New York and WIP in Philadelphia. Although expansion spurred talk of the stores becoming a nationwide chain, the Great Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...

 ended that prospect. Gimbel did increase the number of more upscale (and enormously profitable) Saks Fifth Avenue stores in the 1930s, opening branches in Chicago, Boston and San Francisco.

Largest in the world

By 1930 Gimbels had seven flagship stores throughout the country and net sales of $123 million with 20 sites; this made Gimbel Brothers Inc. the largest department store corporation in the world. By the time of World War II, profits had risen to a net worth of $500 million, or over $8 billion in today's money. By 1965, Gimbel Brothers Inc. consisted of 53 stores throughout the country, which included 22 Gimbels, 27 Saks Fifth Avenue stores, and four Saks 34th St.

Publicity

Despite its limited presence, Gimbels was well-known nation-wide, in part because of 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
William Randolph Hearst
William Randolph Hearst was an American business magnate and leading newspaper publisher. Hearst entered the publishing business in 1887, after taking control of The San Francisco Examiner from his father...

 collection. Gimbels also got an abundance of publicity from the 1947 film Miracle on 34th Street
Miracle on 34th Street
Miracle on 34th Street is a 1947 Christmas film written by George Seaton from a story by Valentine Davies, directed by George Seaton and starring Maureen O'Hara, John Payne, Natalie Wood and Edmund Gwenn...

, and from the 1967 film Fitzwilly
Fitzwilly
Fitzwilly is a 1967 film by Delbert Mann, based on Poyntz Tyler's novel, A Garden of Cucumbers, adapted for the screen by Isobel Lennart...

. For example: Gimbels was frequently mentioned as a premier shopping destination of Lucy Ricardo and Ethel Mertz
Ethel Mertz
Ethel Roberta Louise Mae Mertz is one of the four main fictional characters in the highly popular 1950s and 1960s American television sitcom I Love Lucy, played by Vivian Vance. Ethel is the main character Lucy's middle-aged landlady - supposed to have been born about 1905, and raised in New Mexico...

 on the hit 1950s TV series I Love Lucy
I Love Lucy
I Love Lucy is an American television sitcom starring Lucille Ball, Desi Arnaz, Vivian Vance, and William Frawley. The black-and-white series originally ran from October 15, 1951, to May 6, 1957, on the Columbia Broadcasting System...

. (An homage to Miracle on 34th Street was paid in the 2003 comedy film Elf
Elf (film)
Elf is a 2003 comedy film directed by Jon Favreau, written by David Berenbaum and starring Will Ferrell, James Caan, and Zooey Deschanel. It was released in the United States on November 7, 2003 and grossed over $220,400,000 worldwide.-Plot:A baby crawls into Santa Claus' sack while he is...

which offered "Gimbels" as the fictional setting of the title character's workplace.)

The Slinky
Slinky
Slinky or "Lazy Spring" is a toy consisting of a helical spring that stretches and can bounce up and down. It can perform a number of tricks, including traveling down a flight of steps end-over-end as it stretches and re-forms itself with the aid of gravity and its own momentum.-History:The toy was...

 made its debut at the northeast Philadelphia Gimbels store.

Flagship store

Gimbels New York flagship
Flagship
A flagship is a vessel used by the commanding officer of a group of naval ships, reflecting the custom of its commander, characteristically a flag officer, flying a distinguishing flag...

 was located in the cluster of large department stores that surrounded Herald Square
Herald Square
Herald Square is formed by the intersection of Broadway, Sixth Avenue and 34th Street in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. Named for the New York Herald, a now-defunct newspaper formerly headquartered there, it also gives its name to the surrounding area...

. Designed by architect Daniel Burnham
Daniel Burnham
Daniel Hudson Burnham, FAIA was an American architect and urban planner. He was the Director of Works for the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. He took a leading role in the creation of master plans for the development of a number of cities, including Chicago and downtown Washington DC...

, the structure, which once offered 27 acres (109,265.2 m²) of selling space, has since been modernized and entirely revamped. It now houses the Manhattan Mall
Manhattan Mall
The Manhattan Mall, one of the few traditional indoor malls in New York City, is located at 33rd Street and Sixth Avenue. There are entrances to the 34th Street – Herald Square subway station and the 33rd Street PATH station, on the second basement level.This mall is a high-traffic shopping venue...

, a variety of individual stores. When this building opened in 1910, a major selling point was its many doors leading to the Herald Square subway station; due to such easy access, by the time Gimbels closed in 1986, this store had the highest rate of "shrinkage", or shoplifting
Shoplifting
Shoplifting is theft of goods from a retail establishment. It is one of the most common property crimes dealt with by police and courts....

 losses, in the world. Doors also opened to a pedestrian passage under 33rd Street, connecting Penn Station to the subway stations. This "Gimbels Corridor" was closed in the 1970s for reasons of liability during a period of high crime rates. After conversion to the Manhattan Mall, parts of the former store were occupied by a mid-town branch of Brooklyn
Brooklyn
Brooklyn is the most populous of New York City's five boroughs, with nearly 2.6 million residents, and the second-largest in area. Since 1896, Brooklyn has had the same boundaries as Kings County, which is now the most populous county in New York State and the second-most densely populated...

's Abraham & Straus
Abraham & Straus
Abraham & Straus was a major New York City department store, based in Brooklyn. Founded in 1865, in 1929 it became part of Federated Department Stores, which eliminated the A&S brand shortly after its 1994 acquisition of R.H. Macy & Company...

 and still later by Stern's
Stern's
Stern's was a regional department store chain serving the U.S. states of New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey. The chain was in business for more than 130 years, prior to its 2001 integration into Macy's and Bloomingdale's...

. Today, the lower two levels are occupied by JC Penney. The building that housed a Gimbels branch at 86th Street
86th Street (Manhattan)
86th Street is a major two-way street in the Upper East Side and Upper West Side of the New York City borough of Manhattan.On the West Side its continuous cliff-wall of apartment blocks includng The Belnord is broken by two contrasting landmarked churches at prominent corner sites, the Tuscan...

 and Lexington Avenue remains, but has been converted to apartments.

Gimbels downtown Pittsburgh flagship

In Pittsburgh, Starrett & van Vleck
Starrett & van Vleck
The architectural firm of Starrett & van Vleck specialized in the design of early 20th century department stores primarily in New York City. The partner Goldwin Starrett had worked for four years in the Chicago office of Daniel Burnham. Included in their designs were the New York City flagship...

 designed the downtown flagship of the Gimbels Department Store, which was built in 1914 at 339 Sixth Avenue. After Gimbels went out of business in the late 1980s, the building was converted to a three-level Burlington Coat Factory
Burlington Coat Factory
Burlington Coat Factory Warehouse Corporation is a national department store retailer focusing on clothing and shoes, with over 450 stores in 45 states and Puerto Rico.. In 2006, it was acquired by Bain Capital, LLC in a take-private transaction...

 which houses the famous Keystone Cafe Restaurant and renamed the Heinz 57
Heinz 57
Heinz 57 is a shortened, popular form of the "57 Varieties" slogan ofPittsburgh's H. J. Heinz Company. In its early days, the company wanted to advertise the great number of choices of canned and bottled foods it offered for sale. Although the company had more than 60 products in 1892, the number...

 Center. In 1997 it was added to the list of historic landmarks by the Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation
Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation
The Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation is a nonprofit organization founded in 1964 to support the preservation of historic buildings and neighborhoods in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA....

.

Parade

The idea of a department-store parade originated in 1920 with Gimbels Department Store in Philadelphia with the parade now known as the 6abc IKEA Thanksgiving Day Parade. Macy's
Macy's
Macy's is a U.S. chain of mid-to-high range department stores. In addition to its flagship Herald Square location in New York City, the company operates over 800 stores in the United States...

 did not start a parade until 1924. When Gimbels closed down in 1986, television station WPVI took over responsibility for the parade, with sponsorship by Reading, Pennsylvania
Reading, Pennsylvania
Reading is a city in southeastern Pennsylvania, USA, and seat of Berks County. Reading is the principal city of the Greater Reading Area and had a population of 88,082 as of the 2010 census, making it the fifth most populated city in the state after Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Allentown and Erie,...

-based Boscov's
Boscov's
Boscov's is an American department store founded by Solomon Boscov in 1911. The first store was in Reading, Pennsylvania, and today 40 stores are spread throughout the Mid-Atlantic states of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, New York, and Delaware....

. Currently, IKEA
IKEA
IKEA is a privately held, international home products company that designs and sells ready-to-assemble furniture such as beds and desks, appliances and home accessories. The company is the world's largest furniture retailer...

 is the chief sponsor of the parade.

The Terrible Towel

Upon the sudden popularity of the Terrible Towel, Pittsburgh area department stores sold out all yellow and black hand towels. Because the hand towels were often sold as a set, with matching bath towels, stores were left with uneven sets. This prompted Gimbels to begin marketing "The Official Myron Cope Terrible Towel" during the 1976 season
1976 NFL season
The 1976 NFL season was the 57th regular season of the National Football League. The league expanded to 28 teams with the addition of the Seattle Seahawks and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers...

.

Relationship to Saks

Saks was founded by Horace Saks in New York City. In 1923, Gimbels purchased Saks, which became a subsidiary of Gimbel Brothers, Incorporated, a publicly traded company. Andrew Gimbel, the founder of Gimbels, turned Saks into a national brand. Once BATUS Inc. acquired Gimbel Bros. in 1973 from the Gimbel family, it also owned Saks Fifth Avenue. BATUS closed Gimbels in 1986, and subsequently sold Saks to Investcorp S.A.
Investcorp
Investcorp is a manager of alternative investment products, serving high-net-worth private and institutional clients. Its principal client base is in the six countries of the Gulf Co-operation Council, but it also has institutional clients in North America and Europe...

 in 1990.

Acquisition by British American Tobacco

Gimbels was acquired in 1973 by Brown & Williamson, the American subsidiary of British-American Tobacco, a diversified conglomerate. Brown & Williamson also owned Marshall Field's
Marshall Field's
Marshall Field & Company was a department store in Chicago, Illinois that grew to become a major chain before being acquired by Macy's Inc...

 (purchased in 1982), Frederick & Nelson
Frederick & Nelson
Frederick & Nelson was a department store chain in the northwestern United States, based in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1891 as a furniture store, it later expanded to sell other types of merchandise. The company was acquired by Marshall Field & Company in 1929...

, The Crescent
The Crescent
The Crescent was a small chain of department store founded and based in Spokane, Washington. Once a subsidiary of Marshall Field & Company, the chain was sold to BATUS Retail Group in 1982. BATUS renamed the stores Frederick & Nelson, the company's Seattle, Washington division, in 1988. Frederick...

 stores, and Kohl's
Kohl's
Kohl's Corporation is an American department store chain headquartered in the Milwaukee suburb of Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin, operating , 1,089 stores in 49 states. In 1998, it entered the S&P 500 list, and is also listed in the Fortune 500...

 (purchased in 1972). Brown & Williamson later created the BATUS Retail Group as a subsidiary company for its retail holdings.

BATUS initially left the Gimbels chain in the four autonomous divisions that had been established under Gimbel family ownership: Gimbels New York, Gimbels Philadelphia, Gimbels Pittsburgh, and Gimbels Milwaukee. Each division operated independently of each other in advertising and buying. Each division offered their own credit card which could only be used at Gimbels stores in the same division. In 1983, Gimbels New York and Gimbels Philadelphia were combined into a single entity, Gimbels East, in an attempt to reduce operating losses in both divisions.

Closure

Deciding that Gimbels was a marginal performer with little potential for increased profitability, BATUS in 1986 decided to close its Gimbels division and sell its store properties. Some of the more attractive branches were taken over by Stern's (Allied Stores
Allied Stores
Allied Stores was a department store chain in the United States. It was founded in the 1930s as part of a general consolidation in the retail sector by B. E. Puckett. See also Associated Dry Goods. It was the successor to Hahn's Department Stores, a holding company founded in 1928...

), Pomeroy's (Allied Stores
Allied Stores
Allied Stores was a department store chain in the United States. It was founded in the 1930s as part of a general consolidation in the retail sector by B. E. Puckett. See also Associated Dry Goods. It was the successor to Hahn's Department Stores, a holding company founded in 1928...

), Kaufmann's
Kaufmann's
Kaufmann's was a department store that originated in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It was owned in the early 20th century by Edgar J. Kaufmann, patron of 'Fallingwater' and the Kaufmann's Desert House. In the post-war years the store became a regional chain in the eastern United States, and was last...

 (May Department Stores
May Department Stores
The May Department Stores Company was a national department store chain in the United States, founded in 1877 by David May. The company ceased to exist in 2005 when it was merged with Federated Department Stores, Inc . Prior to the merger it was headquartered in Downtown St. Louis, Missouri...

, now part of the corporate family of rival Macy's), or Boston Store
Boston Store
-History:The Boston Store is mentioned in Theodore Dreiser's "Sister Carrie" published in 1900 and Carl Sandburg's Mamie, part of his 1916 Chicago Poems collection....

 (P.A. Bergner & Co.
Bergner's
Bergner's is a major department store in central and northern Illinois, established in 1889 in Peoria, Illinois, and offering mid-line to higher end merchandise in their largest stores. The current flagship store is located in Peoria at The Shoppes at Grande Prairie.-Beginnings:Bergner's was...

) 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, along with some other Milwaukee Gimbels branch stores. 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 Gimbels branches it held, except for the Hilldale store in Madison, Wisconsin, which became Macy's in September 2006. The downtown Milwaukee building was remodelled in 1998 and now houses a large vacant retail space (formerly a Borders
Borders Group
Borders Group, Inc. was an international book and music retailer based in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The company employed approximately 19,500 throughout the U.S., primarily in its Borders and Waldenbooks stores....

), the headquarters of the American Society for Quality
American Society for Quality
American Society for Quality , formerly known as American Society for Quality Control , is a knowledge-based global community of quality control experts, with nearly 85,000 members dedicated to the promotion and advancement of quality tools, principles, and practices in their workplaces and in...

 and other offices, and a small extended stay hotel
Apartment hotel
An Apartment Hotel is a serviced apartment complex that uses a hotel-style booking system. It is similar to renting an apartment, but with no fixed contracts and occupants can 'check-out' whenever they wish....

.

External links

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