Quote:
Originally Posted by philatonian
Yep, it was originally a block-size department store on par with Macy's.
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Lit Brothers, technically speaking.
I was curious about how big the old department store was and so I calculated the square footage of the main building: The structure was 400 feet long by 180 feet wide and had six stores and (by the looks of things) a bargain basement: just over 500,000 sf total. I'm betting the company offices were in the Stephen Girard Building and that most of the warehousing functions were located in the Men's Store annex to maximize the gross salable sf of the main building, historically.
The thick brick walls in the demo site suggest that the structure was actually three buildings: large east and west wings unified by a rather smaller central structure. Given how narrow that central portion is, my guess is that it held the building's main escalators and elevator banks, much like how Wanamaker's was set up (and Macy's still uses).