280 Broadway
Encyclopedia
280 Broadway is the site of America's first department store
Department store
A department store is a retail establishment which satisfies a wide range of the consumer's personal and residential durable goods product needs; and at the same time offering the consumer a choice of multiple merchandise lines, at variable price points, in all product categories...

. It later housed The New York Sun newspaper and is now used for municipal offices for New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

. 280 Broadway
Broadway (New York City)
Broadway is a prominent avenue in New York City, United States, which runs through the full length of the borough of Manhattan and continues northward through the Bronx borough before terminating in Westchester County, New York. It is the oldest north–south main thoroughfare in the city, dating to...

 is on the northeast corner of Chambers Street
Chambers Street (Manhattan)
Chambers Street is a bi-directional street in the New York City borough of Manhattan. It runs from River Terrace, Battery Park City, in the west, past PS 234 and Stuyvesant High School to 1 Centre Street, the Manhattan Municipal Building‎, to the east. In the early 20th century the street...

, New York City, New York.

Alexander Turney Stewart
Alexander Turney Stewart
Alexander Turney Stewart was a successful Irish American entrepreneur who made his multi-million fortune in what was at the time the most extensive and lucrative dry goods business in the world....

 had opened his mercantile business across the street, but when it started to prosper, had "The Marble Palace" built on the site of Washington Hall, the former headquarters of the Federalist Party
Federalist Party (United States)
The Federalist Party was the first American political party, from the early 1790s to 1816, the era of the First Party System, with remnants lasting into the 1820s. The Federalists controlled the federal government until 1801...

. Stewart's department store featured a number of marketing innovations designed to increase the volume of turnover and keep up with the increasing capacity of industrial manufacturing. He was among the first to set fixed prices for his goods and drew female customers through special sales and fashion shows. The success of his store inspired numerous imitations north along a five block strip of Broadway. At the height of their success in the 1850s, this portion of Broadway became popular among the city's fashionable elite for window shopping while strutting about in the latest garb.

The building was declared a National Historic Landmark
National Historic Landmark
A National Historic Landmark is a building, site, structure, object, or district, that is officially recognized by the United States government for its historical significance...

in 1965.
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK