Time is ripe for a book about Gimbels

The original Gimbel Brothers building on Market Street between Eighth and Ninth is now a parking lot. There is no trace of the defunct department store in what is now the Gallery, or in any suburban mall for that matter.

The once-bustling chain, which once owned Saks Fifth Avenue, closed its doors in Philadelphia 25 years ago.

So why write a book about Gimbels now?

"Because just hearing the name makes people happy," said Michael J. Lisicky, author of Gimbels Has It!

"It brings back memories. You don't even really have to talk about the store. The memories just come flooding back to them, and they just want to talk and talk."

He's right. I mentioned this story to three people: One girlfriend told me about an aunt who retired from Gimbels at Cheltenham Mall. A colleague of mine talked about getting a job wrapping Christmas presents at Gimbels. And my mother, remembering the famous advertising tagline "Does Macy's tell Gimbels?," promptly asked if I found out the answer.

Lisicky's 150-page paperback - featuring forewords by children's show host Gene London and Inquirer assistant managing editor David Sullivan - covers the grand shopping history of everyday people in Philadelphia, New York, Pittsburgh, and Milwaukee.

Gimbels was the store where solidly working-class people went to buy something nice. And with that brand-new pocketbook, the striped day dress, or the state-of-the-art iron came a shopping experience Lisicky remembers through rose-colored lenses. Segregation, wartime rations, the Great Depression, and family squabbles don't warrant mentions.

"This is a feel-good book," Lisicky said of his third foray into department-store history. Lisicky, an oboist in the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, first wrote Hutzler's: Where Baltimore Shops. Last year, Lisicky, who grew up in Camden, published Wanamaker's: Meet Me at the Eagle. All of Lisicky's books are products of the South Carolina publishing house History Press.

Lisicky has built a national reputation as a department-store expert, regularly answering questions online and as a radio talk-show guest. He spoke to audiences of 50 people, some former Gimbels employees, earlier this month at both the Free Library of Philadelphia and the Union League.

Over the years, he has accumulated more than 5,000 newspaper articles and a vast collection of pictures, many of which are featured in his books.

Gimbels reads like a list of well-documented happy facts. However, nestled within them is the story of the demise of the department store, a story that seems to play out the same with all of the downtown retail anchors, whether it's Wanamakers (upscale) or Gimbels (everyday man).

The Gimbel family's no-frills approach to retail started with patriarch Adam Gimbel, who began the business as a trading post in Vincennes, Ind., in 1842.

Trying to follow the railroad, the Gimbel sons opened their first major store in Milwaukee. Eventually, most of the family members moved to Philadelphia, where they opened their first store on the East Coast in 1894.

In the 1920s, Bernard Gimbel went into business with Horace Saks, making Gimbels the primary owner of Saks Fifth Avenue. Little-known fashion fact: Sophie Gimbel, Bernard's wife, brought haute couture to Saks.

And then there were the things department-store memories were made of: two restaurants, a bargain basement, and (of course) the Gimbels Thanksgiving parade in Philadelphia, arguably the oldest of its kind.

But that was all during Gimbels' heyday. The end of Gimbels began in the 1960s, Lisicky said, when the upper middle class started moving from America's central cities to the suburbs.

"Gimbels started to lose its cachet when Macy's and Bloomingdale's started trading up," Lisicky explained. "The [Gimbel] family began splitting apart, and they weren't investing in the stores as they should have."

In the early 1970s, Gimbels reopened as an anchor store in the Gallery. Unwittingly, it became the store where Grandma shopped, while the hip and funky preferred boutiques and specialty stores.

"When Gimbels moved to the Gallery, it was too much of an identity change," Lisicky said. "They confused the customer."

Gimbels closed its doors nationwide in 1986. But if Gimbels were around today, it might have a shot at surviving. That's largely because the economic climate is calling for well-made items at better prices.

Today we define these stores as "bridge" stores. Though we are coming out of a recession, retail behemoths like Macy's, JCPenney, Target, and Kohl's are enjoying an increase in sales because they are selling fast fashion at affordable prices.

However, Lisicky said, Gimbels would have had to adapt to that celebrity-based fashion approach. That might have been tricky because the company tended to rely heavily on the status quo, balking at change.

"They thought their traditional customer would be with them forever. They took them for granted," Lisicky explained. "They just didn't move with the times."