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| Jordan Marsh - The Store with the Florida Flair |
Jordan Marsh Company (1956)
1501 Biscayne Boulevard
Miami, Florida
FRanklin 4-7251
FRanklin 4-7251
First Floor
Cosmetics • Fine Jewelry • Fashion Jewelry • Hosiery • Umbrellas • Handbags • Leathergoods • Gloves • Dress Accessories • Books • Stationery • JM World Wide Fine Food Shop • 1900 Ice Cream Parlor • Ladies’ Shoes• Pool & Patio Sportswear • T-riffic Shop • Gift Shop • Notions • Luggage • Sporting Goods • Men’s Clothing • Men’s Toiletries • Man’s Furnishings • Men’s Shoes • Men’s Sportswear • Gentry Shop • Young Men’s Shop • Connections • Boys’ Clothing and Furnishings • Sporting Goods
Second Floor
Lingerie • Corsetry • Private Lives • The Place for Young Juniors • Junior Dresses • Junior Sportswear • Junior Coats • Ten to Teen Shop • Jordan Hi Shop • The Shop for Pappagallo • Etienne Aigner Shop • Sportswear Center • Sun and Surf Shop • Town & Country Shop • Boulevard Shop • Mrs. Marsh Shop • Palm Terrace Shop • Better Sportswear • Four Corners • Better Coats • After Five Shop • Biscayne East Sportswear • Designer’s Room • French Salon (Millinery) • Designer Shoe Salon • Fur Salon • Coiffures Americana Beauty Salon • Portrait Studio
Third Floor
JM Young World Girls' Shop • Children’s World • Young World Accessories • Children’s Shoes • Ten to Teen Shop
Gulfstream Shops Gulfstream Sportswear • Gulfstream Dresses • Casual Dresses • Gulfstream Shoes • Gulfstream Lingerie • Gulfstream Corsetry
Gulfstream Restaurant • Captain’s Table • Pelican’s Roost Bar
Fourth Floor
China • Glassware • Silver • Housewares • Electrical Appliances • Appliances • Televisions • Sound Center • New Era Electronics • Hardware • Garden Center • Linens • Domestics • Fabric Center • Art Needlework • Toyland
Fifth Floor
Fifth Floor of Home Fashions Furniture • Bedding • Casual Furniture • Lamps • Draperies • Pictures • Mirrors • Art Gallery • New England House • Floor Coverings
(395,000 sq. ft.)
(395,000 sq. ft.)
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Ft. Lauderdale
1959
Sunrise Boulevard
255,000 sq. ft.
Gulfstream Restaurant
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Colonial Plaza
1962
Orlando
230,000 sq. ft.
Oakmont Restaurant
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Melbourne
JM Sportswear Colony
Brevard Mall
October, 1965
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Dadeland
215,000 sq. ft.
October, 1962
Gulfstream Grille
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Lauderhill Mall
Lauderhill
1966
134,000 sq. ft.
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Palm Beach Mall
W. Palm Beach
October, 1967
181,000 sq. ft.
Gulfstream Restaurant
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Pompano Fashion Square
Pompano Beach
1970
84,000 sq. ft.
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The Mall at 163rd Streett
February, 1970
244,000 sq. ft.
Gulfstream Restaurant
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Merritt Square
Merritt Island
1972
175,000 sq. ft.
Hollywood Fashion Mall
Hollywood
1972
194,000 sq. ft.
Altamonte Mall
Altamonte Springs
1974
159,000 sq. ft.
Broward Mall
Plantation
1978
119,000 sq. ft.
Coming in Due Course
When I was a kid growing up in Daytona Beach, jordan marsh was presented on tv as the consummate shopping experience in Central Fla. Then Burdines opened. It was a wonderful store. The one in Colonial Plaza in Orlando one walked thru as in Burdines Dadeland on the way to Belk-Lindsey. The Oak Room served me alcohol when I was 17. I would order a meal and a whiskey sour and was never carded. Although you could drink in Fla at age 18 then it was an empowering feeling. They were a wonderful store and I still feel their loss each time I pass the location of one of their stores......especially the old "main store" at 1501 Biscayne Blvd.
ReplyDeleteThe Jordan Marsh in the Pompano Fashion Square was small and only one level. But it had very fine merchandise and wonderful service. If you needed a better selection it was easy to get to the Fort Lauderdale store.
ReplyDeleteThe Jordan Marsh on Biscayne Blvd was the most fashionable store during its time. They had the best clothing and the best service. It operated like a suburban store and had on site parking. Later, it became part of a mall..and just wasn't the same.
ReplyDeleteI remember back in the early 70's visiting the Jordan Marsh in Miami and seeing two 80 year old twin sisters riding the up escalators ... both wearing mini skirts. Oh what a sight ...oh the memories!
ReplyDeleteThe first items od clothing I ever bought on my own (with my own money) was at the Jordan Marsh store in Pompano Fashion Square. A Levi navy blue corduroy jacket and Levi navy blue check sports shirt. I still own both (in back of my closet). I am a firm believer in donating my older clothes to the local clothing bank... but these two items remain with me (my personal archive).
ReplyDeletethe first clothing I ever bought on my own and with my own money was at Jordan Marsh in the Pompano Fashion Square. I bought a navy blue Levi corduroy jacket and a navy blue Levi check sport shirt. I still have them today (in the back of my closet). While i am a firm believer in and a donator to the local clothing bank...these items I kept!
ReplyDeleteDidn't many Jordan Marsh stores in eastern Florida become Maas Brothers before closing for good???
ReplyDeleteThe Fort Lauderdale store was in a shopping plaza called Sunrise Shopping Center. There was also a small Saks Fifth Avenue there. I am not sure if there were other stores in this center. In the 1980 the Galleria Mall was built surrounding these stores. The Saks was enlarged and the Jordan Marsh was updated. Other stores were added. There was one other dept store (maybe Burdine's???). Today there is Macy's, Neiman-Marcus and Dillards. What happened to the Saks Fifth Avenue?
ReplyDeleteOK look up Malls of America and click onto Sunrise Center. There you will see a 1960's photo of the Sunrise Center. Clearly you will see a large Jordan Marsh. To the right you can barely see it, but it is a small Saks Fifth Avenue. The Jordan Marsh remained, and The Galleria was built around it. A new Saks opened and also Neiman-Marcus and Lord & Taylor and Burdine's(early 80's). Eventually Dillard's took over the JM building and Macy's took over the Burdine's building. Saks closed in 2009 and is empty.Lord & Taylor is also gone.
ReplyDeleteJORDAN MARSH was the store "with the Florida Flair"... wonderful is what it was!
ReplyDeleteMy sister "Georgeanna" did the windows, she was featured on the cover of Parade (Miami Heralds Sunday magazine). THAT'S when it was wonderful and fabulous!
ReplyDeleteJordan Marsh was so perfect. What has happened to our world.
ReplyDeleteJordan Marsh in Florida was a wonderful store (while the New ENgland store was not so good). JM is really missed/
ReplyDeleteI started working for JM in the Orlando store in 1970 in the Display Dept. Within a year I had been transferred to the Miami store as the Assistant Home Furnishings Coordinator. Those were the days when there was attention to detail and quality. Mr. Herbert Luegge was the Display Director with an office on the fifth floor with a window looking north on Biscayne Blvd. Many talented people worked for this wonderful man. Mr. William Ruben was the President of JM and was a talented merchant. Those days of quality in retail will sadly never return.
ReplyDeleteI used to be a buyer at Jordan Marsh Florida. I worked there for 18 years. So many great memories.
ReplyDeleteIn the end this wonderful store fell victim to the ravages of greed and lack of vision.
I worked there for 7 years, including three as a buyer. All those stores , gone, all those great people, gone, and all those jobs gone as well. I also miss our "enemys" at Burdines!
ReplyDeleteIn the early 1980's I moved to Florida from Detroit and worked in the store on Biscayne Blvd in Miami. This was the "corporate store" where the executive offices were. The buying offices were tucked behind the selling floors all over the store. I was the manager of the Designer Salon and then moved to the buying offices for Better Dresses. I wanted to work in retail to try and recapture the magic I experienced growing up in Detroit and going to the magnificent Hudson's downtown. But retail had already changed by the 1980's. The corporate types at Allied Stores had decided that Jordan Marsh was to become a "moderate" department store when everyone else in town was going upscale and designer. On the one hand they were trying to seem as if they were still upscale but they were selling low-end goods. What a disaster! They couldn't compete with Burdines, Lord & Taylor and the other retailers pouring into Florida. We could never get out dress orders approved in time because the execs didn't want to spend the money! By the time they were approved we had to accept the dresses no other company wanted to buy. I remember one time as a buyer visiting the Boca Raton store at Christmas. The Town Center mall was packed with people. Then you walked into Jordan Marsh and it was like a tomb. No customers, sale signs everywhere and old, stale Christmas decor that was used every year since who knows when. Who would want to shop there? The people that worked in the stores and corporate buying offices worked hard and were truly distressed at what was happening. But they had no choice about the direction the company was taking. Finally, Maas Brothers and Jordan Marsh were combined and the corporate offices in Miami were eliminated. Everything came out of Tampa. I went to Tampa but only stayed for 6 months. Bad decisions and bad management were the end of this grand old company.
ReplyDeleteI used to work in the JM in the Town Center Mall in Boca in the late 80s. It was a wonderful store and most a good share of the employees had been there since it opened. It was really sad to see it close because it was one of the best, if not the best, place I ever worked at. The sense of family was extraordinary and I really miss that store.
ReplyDeleteI worked at the Biscayne store in the Ice Cream Parlor for a couple of years and then moved to the Bridal Department. It was great until they built the mall around the store and then there was a Bridal store in the mall with a much bigger selection of gowns. The mall was the "beginning of the end" for Jordan Marsh:(
ReplyDeleteI do miss those days and the wonderful people I met. I still remember the cheese bread and the incredible cheese cake!!
The Dadeland store was built where we used to have Safety Town. That was a place for kids to learn basic bicycle and pedestrian safety rules. It was sooo much fun! Even though I was very very young when I attended, I resented Jordan March forever! Stupid. They had some beautiful things, but they were expensive and a bit snobby.
ReplyDelete