Farewell Favorites: Emporium

City of Paris department store. Archive photo by Peter Fink.
In 1996, the Emporium, then San Francisco's oldest department store, closed its doors for good. The Emporium building was constructed at 835-865 Market Street in 1896 and rebuilt in 1908. For a few years following the demise of the Emporium, the building housed Macy's furniture department. The vacant complex of buildings that made up the Emporium are the subject of a $500 million redevelopment project that will include a 375,000 sq. ft. Bloomingdale's store, as well as 237,000 sq. ft. of office space and a luxury hotel. As with the City of Paris department store 20 years earlier, architectural and environmental preservationists were unable to block the Bloomingdale's project, which was green lighted by a court in October, 2002. I Magnin and The White House are also famed department stores of San Francisco's yesteryear.

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Copyright 2002 Hank Donat
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