Arnold Constable & Company was America’s oldest
department store, technically founded in 1825. The store itself used 1827 as its founding
date, no doubt due to its variable early history, and celebrated its centennial
in 1927. Aaron Arnold (1794-1876), a native of the Isle of
Wight in southern England, came to America with his wife in 1823. Upon landing in Philadelphia, he began to
study the advantages of doing business in various cities along the east coast
of America, and decided to settle in New York, where he opened a 17’ X 74’ dry
goods store at 91 Pine Street.
Within about a year, he relocated to larger quarters at 156
Front Street, but even this location had to be abandoned in 1827, when he moved
the business to the corner of Canal and Mercer streets, and took his cousin
George A. Hearn (who had immigrated to Philadelphia two years before Arnold)
into partnership. At this time, the
store was known as Arnold & Hearn; when George Hearn’s son James
(1810-1886) joined the firm in 1834 it
became known as Arnold, Hearn & Company, until the Hearns parted company
with Arnold in 1842 to found their own store, ultimately known as James A.
Hearn & Son.
Six years earlier, James Mansell Constable (1812-1900), a
native of Sussex, England, arrived in the United States, and after a few years
of traveling through western New York, called on Arnold in New York and joined
the firm, known after the 1842 dissolution with the Hearns, as A. Arnold &
Co. As fate would have it, Constable
courted, and then married Arnold’s daughter Henrietta in 1844. He became a partner in by 1853, when the
store took its ultimate name, Arnold Constable & Company. Aaron Arnold’s only son Richard became a
partner at this time as well.
Thus followed a period of great success in which Arnold
Constable became known as one of New York’s finest stores, catering to the
carriage trade. In 1857, it moved to the
large 5-story “Marble House,” built for it on the block bounded by Canal,
Howard, and Mercer Streets, which held the firm’s retail business on its first
two floors, and the wholesale departments on those above. During this time, Arnold Constable &
Company introduced a true retail innovation when it switched from the
then-standard twice-annual account billing to a monthly system, which after it
was adopted, improved the cash flow of the retail business to a great degree.
In 1869, Aaron Arnold retired and the store moved northward,
according the prevailing trend of New York retailers, to the south side of 19th
Street and Broadway. This $400,000.00
“Palace of Trade” as it was known, was extolled upon its opening by the New York Times as “the largest, most
commodious, and best lighted stores to be found in the city.” Two floors were added in 1873, when the
building acquired its elegant French-style mansard attic. The store extended through the whole block in
1877, giving Arnold Constable a presence on Fifth Avenue for the first time. After the 1869 opening of the 19th
Street store, the company’s wholesale division remained at the Mercer Street
location until 1915.
After neighbor Lord & Taylor announced its move to 5th
Avenue in 1912, Arnold Constable acquired the site of the Frederick W.
Vanderbilt mansion, on the southeast corner of Broadway and 40th
Street, for a new store in the growing retail district between 34th and 42nd
streets. The move north on Fifth Avenue
was announced in conjunction with the incorporation of Arnold Constable &
Company in 1914. The incorporation left
the old store in the hands of heirs of the founders, notably Hicks Arnold and
Harriet M. Arnold, but ownership of the stock included several directors who
had been with the company long-term.
When it opened on November 8th, 1914, the new
six-story building presented a dignified image, sheathed as it was in limestone,
with a base trimmed in granite and bronze.
A two-story portion to the south of the main block allowed light and air
into the taller portion of the store at the corner of Fifth Avenue and 40th
Street. This low section benefitted the adjoining
Union League Club building in the same way.
The 2-story wing of the building was originally designed to house a
separate tenant, but in the event, Arnold Constable took the space for its own
needs, including the “Arnold Constable $50,000 Louis Quinze salon, which,
wainscoting, crystal chandeliers and all, will be moved from the old store to
this” according to the New York Times.
In addition to a main entrance on Fifth
Avenue, and two on 40th Street, the new store had a 25 foot-wide ground
floor extension at the rear that gave it a presence on 39th Street
as well.
In autumn of 1922, newspaper ads proclaimed the fact that
the store was undergoing a “reorganization,” in order to better serve
customers. Less than a month later, all
of the company’s stock was purchased by businessman Stephen J. Leonard and
several of his associates, and Arnold Constable left control of the family of
the founder. Management included
executives from B. Altman & Co. and John Wanamaker, New York, as well as
former Arnold Constable & Company managers.
In 1925, Arnold Constable & Company merged into another
New York retailer, Stewart & Company.
The Liberman Brothers, Meyer (1882-1970)
and Isaac (1886-1983), who owned
Stewart, gained control of the older store.
When Stewart & Company’s elaborate new store at Fifth Avenue and 56th
Street, which opened in October of 1929, proved a failure, the Stewart name was
retired and its building was leased to Bonwit Teller. The Libermans were subsequently able to focus
their attentions on the older Arnold Constable & Co. store. Isaac Liberman’s personal friendship with
Eleanor Roosevelt no doubt led to Arnold Constable becoming the first lady’s
favorite shopping location in New York.
Arnold Constable & Company celebrated its centennial in
1927, 100 years after Aaron Arnold and George Hearn founded their partnership. At a gala dinner at the Plaza Hotel, held on
September 8, 1927, president Isaac Liberman noted that when Aaron Arnold hung
up his sign in 1925, New York City was just a small town, but over the lifetime
of Arnold Constable & Company, it had become the greatest city known to the
world. He also praised the store’s
staff, who collectively provided the outstanding customer service that gained fame for the
company far and wide.
When the Hotel Touraine, which adjoined the store to the
east, was demolished in 1927, it was subsequently replaced by a 40-story skyscraper
known as the Chase Tower. Arnold
Constable doubled its size by leasing six floors and a basement in the new
art-deco style skyscraper. A further expansion occurred in 1937, after the
Union League club was demolished for a large F. W. Woolworth store. At this time, four floors were added above
the low, 2-story part of the building, matching the design and height of the
rest of the structure.
Branch development began in 1937 with the opening of an
art-deco style store in New Rochelle, New York, at the heart of affluent
Westchester county, north of New York City.
Further branches soon appeared on Long Island and in suburban New
Jersey, but the store’s reputation and well-known (at the time) name helped it
anchor shopping districts as far away as Trenton and Philadelphia. An attempt to enter the Baltimore market was
carried out with the 1962 opening in that city’s Eudowood Shopping Plaza, but
the store failed to attract customers and closed within a year.
The Eudowood debacle was indicative of the problems faced by
the august retailer in the 1960s and 1970s.
In search of past glory, the store remodeled in 1965 and proclaimed
itself “The New Arnold Constable” but the red ink continued to mount. In 1970, the New York Public Library, which
owned the property on which the store stood, occupied the top floors, and
Arnold Constable’s operation shrunk to three floors. The Liberman era at Arnold Constable ended
concurrently with this contraction of business on Fifth Avenue.
Though Arnold Constable was a pioneer in branch-store
development, it was ironically the branches of the company that struggled in
the shopping-center age. Mostly located
in smaller downtown shopping areas, these stores saw a distinct drop in traffic
as modern shopping malls attracted customers away from them. By July of 1974, Arnold Constable shed the
last of its branch stores, and began developing small “tops and bottoms” shops
in malls under the trademark “NoName.”
By this time, the Fifth Avenue store, which still proudly carried the
Arnold Constable name above its grand entrance, had degenerated into a
single-floor NoName operation.
150 years after Aaron Arnold opened his pioneering store in
New York City, Arnold Constable went out of business. The days of chauffeurs lining up around the
block to pick-up carriage-trade ladies after a day’s shopping at Arnold Constable
were long gone by 1975. Though the NoName stores appeared to point a way to the
future for the company, they, too, eventually folded and the name of Arnold
Constable & Company became history.
The building is today occupied by the Mid-Manhattan branch of the New York
Public Library.
