when and why did this store close?

Hi, granny!

According to Doerling Kindersley's "20th Century Day-by-Day" website
"24 November 1989  New York: B. Altman's goes out of business."
http://daybyday.dk.com/C20UK/TODAYINHISTORY/24-Nov.htm

As to the cause of the store's downfall, TIME Magazine ran a story on
December 11, 1989 entitled:
"Special Report: Raiders on The Run Debacle on 34th Street
How takeover debt helped kill off the venerable B. Altman chain", by
Barbara Rudolph
This is a "premium" story, so the full text version must be purchased.
http://www.time.com/time/archive/preview/from_redirect/0,10987,1101891211-150778,00.html

The B. Altman Department Store building has now become the Graduate
Center for CUNY (City University of New York). You can read more
details about the historic building on the CUNY webpages for the
Landmarks Preservation Commission:
The "B. Altman & Company Department Store Building, 355-371 Fifth
Avenue, Borough of Manhattan. Built 1905-1913; architects Trowbridge &
Livingston."
http://www.gc.cuny.edu/about_the_grad_center/landmark

"The building closed in 1989 when B. Altman & Co. went out of
business."
http://www.gc.cuny.edu/about_the_grad_center/b_altman

The vacant B. Altman's store, which was undergoing renovation and
asbestos remediation at the time, was gutted after a devastating
5-alarm fire began in the fur vault on Friday, August 23, 1996.

You can read details of the fire here, on a website by Frank Raffa, a
Supervising Dispatcher for the FDNY:
http://members.aol.com/fd347/baltmans.htm


Search Strategy

"B. Altman" "out-of-business"
://www.google.com/search?q=%22B.+Altman%22+%22out-of-business%22&btnG=Google+Search&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8


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Regards,

aceresearcher

---

Clarification of Answer by aceresearcher-ga on 27 Feb 2003 12:41 PST

Hi again granny!

Another clue about the demise of the B. Altman store chain...

From a footnote on the University of Pennsylvania website of graduate
student Daniel Gildea:
"Mr. Finkelstein is apparently referring to B. Altman and Bonwit
Teller , [ARG0 two New York retailers] that *T*-1 have [recently
filed] for [for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection] , as well as the
retail chains owned * by financially troubled Campeau Corp ."
http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~dgildea/PropBank/Sort/f/file.html

Please let me know if you require more in-depth details of the
takeover debt that sank B. Altman's ship.

ace

thanks you so much!  it was lovely reading about this building's
history and its founder in your third and fourth linKs.  I had no idea
there was a power plant in its subbasement. also appreciate you
including what's happened to the building since its closing.  it was
such a grand store with fabulous architecture.  they don't make 'em
like that anymore.