Devorkin Joseph (1 results)

Condition: Near Fine. First edition. Port. frontispiece, 101 pp. Illus. with approx. 200 b/w photos and drawings. 4to. 10 3/4 x 8 1/2 inches. Inscribed by the author on the half title. Edition limited to 300 copies. The work has historical sketches of many New York retailers that originally opened on the famous "Ladies' Mile," a shopping area that reached from 14th and the Union Square area, up Broadway to 23rd Street in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Many stores such as Lord & Taylor, Henri Bendel, F.A.O.Schwarz, and Bergdorf Goodman started here before eventual relocation or closure. Included are contemporary and historical photos and excerpts from original newspaper advertisements for the stores (See City Hall Library Notes, May 2006). As Henry Collins Brown, curator of the Museum of the City of New York in 1892, said "All the world came to Broadway to shop, to dine, to flirt, to find amusement, and to meet acquaintances." Scarce. OCLC locates only 8 copies. Longstreth: Historical Bibliography of Commercial Architecture in the U.S., p 34. A near fine copy, light soiling to wrappers, authors obituary tipped on to half title. Quarter cloth over decorated limp cards, laid on photo.