Bamberger's
 The 1975-1986 logo. |
|
| department store | |
| Industry | Retail |
| Fate | Rebranded as/replaced by Macy's |
| Founded | 1893 |
| Defunct | 1986 |
| Headquarters | Newark, New Jersey, U.S. |
| Products | Clothing, footwear, bedding, furniture, jewelry, beauty products, electronics and housewares. |
| Parent | Macy's (1929-1986) |
Bamberger's was a department store chain with locations primarily in New Jersey, also with locations in the states of Delaware, Maryland, New York, and Pennsylvania. The chain was headquartered in Newark, New Jersey.
Founded in 1893 by Louis Bamberger as L. Bamberger & Company in Newark, New Jersey, in 1912 the company built its flagship store, designed by Jarvis Hunt, at 131 Market Street. Jarvis Hunt would also design the Newark Museum following a gift from Bamberger. In June, 1929 (prior to the October 1929 stock market crash) Bamberger's was purchased by R.H. Macy Co.
Suburban branch stores of L. Bamberger & Co. were built in downtown Morristown, NJ, and in Plainfield, NJ, and at the Princeton Shopping Center in Princeton, NJ. With the post-World War II population shift towards the suburbs of major cities, Bamberger's built additional stores in locations such as East Brunswick, Garden State Plaza, Monmouth Mall, Nanuet Mall, and Menlo Park Mall. In 1970, the East Brunswick location became an anchor store for the Brunswick Square Mall.
The 1960s and 1970s saw expansion throughout the state of New Jersey and into the Greater Philadelphia metropolitan area, and the 1980s there were branches opened in the Baltimore, Maryland metropolitan area. On October 5, 1986, the Bamberger's stores adopted the name Macy's New Jersey, and in 1988 Macy's New Jersey was consolidated with sister division Macy's New York to form Macy's Northeast (now Macy's, Inc.).
The historic Bamberger's flagship store at 131 Market Street in downtown Newark once ranked among the nation's largest.
The massive 14-story building covered an entire city block, bounded by Market, Washington, Bank and Halsey Streets. The phone exchange, 565, was devoted solely to Bamberger's, with local direct-dial numbers for most of New Jersey's suburbs for telephone orders, known as "Tele-Service." The building's loading dock was located well below ground on the fourth-basement level, avoiding the blocking of busy city streets when loading of delivery trucks at street-level. Two massive elevators carried fully loaded 18-wheeled trucks from Washington Street down to the loading docks.
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Wikipedia