Bonwit Teller & Company
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| Department store | |
| Industry | Retail |
| Fate | Liquidated (1990) |
| Founded | 1895 New York, New York |
| Headquarters | New York, New York |
| Products | Clothing, footwear, bedding, furniture, jewelry, beauty products, and housewares. |
Bonwit Teller & Co. was a department store in New York City founded by Paul Bonwit in 1895 at Sixth Avenue and 18th Street, and later a chain of department stores. In 1897 Edmund D. Teller was admitted to the partnership and the store moved to 23rd Street, east of Sixth Avenue. Bonwit specialized in high-end women's apparel at a time when many of its competitors were diversifying their product lines, and Bonwit Teller became noted within the trade for the quality of its merchandise as well as the above-average salaries paid to both buyers and executives. The partnership was incorporated in 1907 and the store made another move, this time to the corner of Fifth Avenue and 38th Street.
Throughout much of the twentieth century, Bonwit Teller was one of a group of upscale department stores on Fifth Avenue that catered to the "carriage trade". Among its most notable peers were Peck & Peck, Saks Fifth Avenue and B. Altman and Company.
Bonwit changed ownership frequently, particularly after 1979. Bonwit Teller's parent company declared bankruptcy in 1989, resulting in the closure of the bulk of the company's stores. Despite efforts over the years to restore it, the Bonwit Teller brand is now defunct.
The Bonwit Teller's flagship uptown building at Fifth Avenue and 56th Street, originally known as Stewart & Company, was a women's clothing store in the "new luxury retailing district", designed by the Whitney Warren and Charles Wetmore, and opened on October 16, 1929 with Eleanor Roosevelt in attendance. It was described by The New York Times a 12-story emporium of "severe, almost unornamented limestone climbing to a ziggurat of setbacks" — as an "antithesis" of the nearby "conventional 1928 Bergdorf Goodman.
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