Bonwit Teller

Infobox_Company
company_name = Bonwit Teller
company_
company_type = Department store
foundation = 1895 New York, New York
location = New York, New York
industry = Retail
products = Clothing, footwear, bedding, furniture, jewelry, beauty products, and housewares.
homepage = www.bonwitteller.com

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.

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.http://dlxs.lib.wayne.edu/d/dhhcc/retailers/bonwitteller.html]

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. It was later acquired by Philadelphia-based investment company Bankers Securities Corporation.

By 1958, Bonwit Teller had six locations, in New York, Manhasset, White Plains, Chicago, Cincinnati, and Boston, as well as a resort shop in Palm Beach. With the addition of Short Hills in 1961 it had eight stores, and by 1965, with the merger of the three-store Bonwit Teller Philadelphia chain, it had twelve.

In the 1995 film "Die Hard with a Vengeance" the Fifth Avenue store was blown up by a terrorist bomb.

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 L.J. Hooker in 1987. In the early 1980s, Donald Trump demolished the flagship Manhattan location to build the original Trump Tower. [ [http://www.thecityreview.com/trumpt.html The Midtown Book - Trump Tower ] ] 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. ["Suit Slams How Congel Covered Losses" Syracuse Post-Standard. May 28, 2006]

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.

In June 2008 it was announced that Bonwit Teller "boutiques" would be opening in as many as twenty locations, beginning with New York and Los Angeles. The relaunch team is being led by fashion industry entrepreneur and executive Andrei Najjar.

Former locations

California

* Beverly Hills - Wilshire Boulevard
* Palm Desert - Palm Desert Town Center (now Westfield Palm Desert) - convert|60000|sqft|m2 - later Bullocks Wilshire, then I. Magnin, and finally Macy's Men's; torn down 2006 for Nordstrom

Florida

* Bal Harbour - Bal Harbour Shops
* Miami Beach - Lincoln Road
* Palm Beach - 301 Worth Avenue - now Chanel

Illinois

* Chicago:*745 North Michigan Avenue - opened 1947, moved to 875 North Michigan 1971, later I. Magnin, now smaller stores:*875 North Michigan Avenue in John Hancock Center - now Paul Stuart
* Northbrook - Northbrook Court - later I. Magnin, demolished for an AMC Theatres complex
* Oak Brook - Oakbrook Center - closed 1990, now mall space
* Oak Park - moved to Oakbrook Center

Massachusetts

* Boston:*234 Berkeley Street - opened 1947, closed 1988, now Louis Boston:*500 Boylston Street - now offices

Michigan

* Troy - Somerset Mall (now Somerset Collection) - torn down 1992, Neiman Marcus on site

Missouri

* Kansas City - 445 Nichols Road Country Club Plaza - now smaller stores

New Jersey

* Short Hills - The Mall at Short Hills - opened 1961 - first shopping mall location - Closed 1992, demolished for expansion of mall, reopened as Saks 5th Ave., 1994

New York

* Buffalo - Walden Galleria - closed 1996, became Old Navy and Bed Bath & Beyond; Bed Bath & Beyond moved 2007'
* Manhasset - 2101 Northern Boulevard (Miracle Mile) - opened 1957 - now Bed Bath & Beyond and Whole Foods Market
* Manhattan - 721 Fifth Avenue in former A.T. Stewart building from 1930 to 1979 (240,000 square feet) - followed by 2 East 57th Street (Trump Tower), opened in 1981 (84,000 square feet, with convert|42000|sqft|m2 of selling space)
* Scarsdale/Eastchester - Vernon Hills Shopping Center, 700 White Plains Road - opened 1967 - convert|43000|sqft|m2
* Syracuse - Carousel Center - closed 2000, now H&M
* White Plains

Ohio

* Cincinnati - Forest Fair Mall (now Cincinnati Mills) - now theater and other shops
* Cleveland - 1331 Euclid Avenue (now offices)

Pennsylvania

* Jenkintown - Foxcroft Square
* Philadelphia - 1700 Chestnut Street - now Daffy's
* Wynnewood - Wynnewood Shopping Centre

outh Carolina

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

Canceled stores

*Danville, California - Blackhawk Plaza
*Kansas City, Missouri - Blue Ridge Mall - would have replaced Harzfeld's
*Albany, New York - Crossgates Mall - site became Lord & Taylor 1994

External links

* [http://dlxs.lib.wayne.edu/d/dhhcc/bios/bonwitteller.html Quick History of Store]

References