754 Fifth Avenue, Bergdorf Goodman

Designed to echo the now-vanished Marble Row erected some 60 years earlier by the powerful society widow Mary Mason Jones, what is now known as Bergdorf Goodman at 754 Fifth Avenue was in fact erected as a row of single shops merged into one architectural statement by Kahn & Jacobs. Finish in 1928 the building… Continue reading

Saks Fifth Avenue, 611 Fifth Avenue

A sophisticated essay in understatement by Starrett & van Vleck, Saks Fifth Avenue is one of the city’s most famous department stores and the one, for obvious reasons, most closely identified with the avenue itself.  Founded in 1867 by Andrew Saks as Saks & Co., it was later merged with Gimbel Brothers and relaunched in… Continue reading

424-434 Fifth Avenue, Lord & Taylor

One of the city’s most beloved department Stores, the Lord & Taylor Fifth Avenue flagship at 424-434 Fifth Avenue was designed by Starrett & van Vleck, the city’s leading department store architects and marked a turning point in both the firm’s architecture and in how department stores were conceived of architecturally. In place of designs… Continue reading

351 Fifth Avenue, The B. Altman’s Building

Arguably the best department store building in New York City, the former B. Altman’s at 351 Fifth Avenue is a restrained design by Trowbridge & Livingston created when the store moved from its former location on Sixth Avenue.  Designed to blend in with the staid mansions that then dominated the area, the store was famed… Continue reading

113 Fifth Avenue, Arnold Constable & Co.

This spectacular survivor from the post-Civil War period is one of the most significant commercial buildings on Fifth Avenue and one of the largest examples of the French Second Empire in New York. 113 Fifth Avenue was originally a Broadway building, part of the Arnold Constable & Co. complex designed by architect Griffith Thomas. In… Continue reading