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'Bonwit Teller' was a department store in New York City founded by Paul Bonwit. Now defunct, it was one of a group of department stores that catered to the carriage trade on Fifth Avenue, including Peck & Peck, Saks Fifth Avenue and B. Altman and Company.

Contents

History

Ownership Changes

Former locations

California

Florida

Illinois

Massachusetts

Michigan

Missouri

New Jersey

New York

Ohio

Pennsylvania

South Carolina

Pop Culture References

Influences

External links

Notes

History

In 1895, Paul Bonwit opened a store at Sixth Avenue and Eighteenth Street. Two years later, in partnership with Edmund D. Teller, he relocated their establishment to Sixth Avenue and Twenty-third Street, becoming Bonwit Teller. The firm was incorporated in 1907 as Bonwit Teller & Company and in 1911 relocated yet again, this time to the corner of Fifth Avenue and Thirty-eighth Street.^[1]
They announced that this new location would provide consumers with:
The firm specialized in high-end women's apparel at a time when many of its competitors were diversifying their product lines, and Bonwit Teller became noted within the trade for the quality of its merchandise as well as the above-average salaries paid to both buyers and executives.
In 1930, with the retail trade in New York City moving uptown, the store moved to a new address on Fifth Avenue – the former A.T. Stewart & Company building at Fifty-sixth Street. In 1931 noted financier Floyd Odlum, who had cashed in his stock holdings just prior to the stock market crash of 1929, was acquiring and turning around firms in financial distress. In 1932, Odlum's wife Hortense became a consultant to the company; and two years later, he sold the firm to Atlas Corporation. Odlum promptly named his wife as the new president (she became the first woman to hold such a position in New York). Paul Bonwit's son Walter Bonwit stayed on as vice president and general manager.^[1]

Ownership Changes

Sold to the Hoving Corporation in 1946, the store underwent several changes of ownership, beginning with Genesco in 1956, then Allied Stores Corporation in 1979, and finally the Hooker Corporation in 1987. In the early 1980s, Donald Trump demolished the flagship Manhattan location to build the original Trump Tower.^[3] It had a new location attached to the Tower's indoor mall, however it only lasted a short time, before being replaced by another short-lived department store venture, Galeries Lafayette.
The Pyramid Company purchased the Bonwit Teller chain from bankruptcy court for $8 million in 1990, planning to have a Bonwit store as one of four major anchors in the company's then soon-to-open Carousel Center mall in Syracuse, New York. The company had plans to expand the store name throughout the company's two dozen malls and to create a new flagship store in Manhattan, but these plans never materialized. Pyramid reportedly lost $60 million between 1990 and 1999 operating Bonwit Teller. The amount was the subject of a lawsuit alleging company chairman Robert Congel illegally transferred $20 million of the debt to partners in the company's Crossgates Mall in Albany, which never housed a Bonwit Teller store.^[4]
In the history of retail trade, the name Bonwit Teller has remained synonymous with high quality in women's apparel, and through that association Paul Bonwit secured his niche in the annals of New York business.
In 2005, River West Brands, a Chicago based brand revitalization company, announced that it had formed Avenue Brands LLC to help bring back the company as a luxury brand.

Former locations

California

★ Beverly Hills - Wilshire Boulevard

★ Palm Desert - Palm Desert Town Center (''later Bullocks Wilshire'')

Florida

★ Bal Harbour - Bal Harbour Shops

★ Palm Beach - 301 Worth Avenue (''now Chanel'')

Illinois

★ Chicago - 875 North Michigan Avenue (John Hancock Center; ''this replaced its earlier location at 745 North Michigan Avenue from 1949 to 1971, which became I. Magnin and was later subdivided into several shops'')

★ Oak Park, Illinois (moved to Oakbrook Center)

★ Oak Brook - Oakbrook Center

★ Northbrook, Illinios - Northbrook Center (Now AMC Movies)_

Massachusetts

★ Boston - 500 Boylston Street (''now offices; original store was located from 1947 to 1988 at 234 Berkeley Street, now Louis Boston'')

Michigan

★ Troy - Somerset Collection (''torn down 1992, Neiman Marcus on site'')

Missouri

★ Kansas City - 445 Nichols Road (Country Club Plaza)

★ Kansas City - Blue Ridge Mall (''never opened; would have replaced Harzfeld's'')

New Jersey

★ Short Hills - The Mall at Short Hills (''demolished for expansion of mall'')

New York

★ Buffalo - Walden Galleria (''closed 1996, now Old Navy and Bed Bath & Beyond'')

★ Manhasset - 2101 Northern Boulevard (Miracle Mile), ''now Bed Bath & Beyond and Whole Foods Market'')

★ Manhattan - 2 East 57th Street (Trump Tower)

★ Scarsdale - 700 White Plains Road

★ Syracuse - Carousel Center (''closed 2000, now H&M'')

Ohio

★ Cincinnati - Forest Fair Mall (''mall renamed Cincinnati Mills; Bonwit Teller space is now theater and other shops'')

★ Cleveland - 1331 Euclid Avenue

Pennsylvania

★ Jenkintown - Foxcroft Square

★ Philadelphia - 1700 Chestnut Street (''now Daffy's'')

★ Wynnewood - Wynnewood Shopping Centre

South Carolina

★ Columbia - Midtown at Forest Acres (formerly Richland Mall) (''later Dillard's, then Black Lion; currently vacant'')

★ Columbia - Columbiana Centre (''later Dillard's'')

Pop Culture References

Bonwit Teller was the store that was blown up in the motion picture ''Die Hard With a Vengeance'' at the start of the film.
Bonwit Teller was the store in the movie Rocky in which Rocky bought himself his black jacket with a tiger on the back and an expensive fur coat for Adrian.
Bonwit Teller is mentioned by Anne Sexton in "Cinderella."
Bonwit Teller is referenced in the AMC serial "Mad Men" in which the ad agency meets with a Jewish department store heiress who decribes her store as next door to Tiffany's. The store in the show is called Menken's.

Influences

Horace Hagedorn, founder of Miracle Gro, says of his mother Blanche:

External links

★ Quick History of Store

Notes

1. http://dlxs.lib.wayne.edu/d/dhhcc/retailers/bonwitteller.html
2. http://dlxs.lib.wayne.edu/d/dhhcc/retailers/bonwitteller.html
3. http://www.thecityreview.com/trumpt.html
4. "Suit Slams How Congel Covered Losses" Syracuse Post-Standard. May 28, 2006