On Friday it was announced that the downsizing of Macy's Downtown St. Louis store that has been planned for over a year will finally start this week. Its hard to imagine today that Downtown St. Louis once supported three mammoth department stores: Famous Barr, Stix Baer & Fuller and Scruggs Vandervoort Barney, each boasting over half a million square feet of sales floor. Now the sole survivor will shrink from seven floors to three, shrinking from about 675,000 square feet to about 200,000. The vacation of the sixth floor will mean the end the last traditional department store tea room in St. Louis, which occupied a large portion of the floor. The St. Louis Room was the place where your grandmother and her friends went to eat while out for a day of shopping and this was evident from the decor. The room today is almost devoid of decoration or character except for a few hints of Art Deco. Some travertine left exposed a few spots as well as the sweeping arc shape of the space make me wonder if it had some more of this flavor at one time? Beyond the staid main dining room was a smaller room that was clearly meant as the domain for the men who worked in the surrounding business district. The space is heavy on Olde English Tudor decoration complete with half timbered rough plaster walls, a bar and a large fireplace in one corner. While the St. Louis Room had long ago lost its luster along with most of the store above the first floor, until a few years ago it was full for lunch almost every day of the week. After Macy's closed the Midwest division and slashed almost a thousand workers from the former May Company headquarters offices on the floors above the store however it became a ghost town. The last time I ate there late last fall after false rumors of imminent closure, my friend and I were among maybe a dozen other people in the entire restaurant. The St. Louis Room nearly empty on a weekday around 12:30. Papa Fabarre's, the more popular and much smaller restaurant on the 2nd floor is also closing, apparently because it does not have a separate kitchen. Fabarre's had an interior that felt like you were transformed to a time of nearly a century ago, when the Railway Exchange Building was built. I don't believe the interior was was that old, but someone did a fairly decent job of pulling off the look. Check out some photos of Fabarre's at St. Louis City Talk. I always liked the antique belt driven ceiling fans, and of course the Famous French onion soup. Another feature of the store that will face an uncertain future are the beautiful old escalators. From the third through fifth floor, the escalators were a streamlined combination polished stainless steel and aluminum. From five up, the escalators switched to stained wood. Going down The sweeping curved lines of movement between floors were featured on the panels separating the up and down escalators. Details are everything. A bronze insert holds the corner where the escalator meets the adjacent ceiling.
Throngs of holiday shoppers fill the intersection of 7th & Washington in front of Stix Baer & Fuller. 60's era photo from the archives of the now defunct Pyramid Companies With recent announcements about the latest "future" of St. Louis Centre, I am starting a series of posts about its history and impact on Downtown St. Louis. First though, I think we should take a look back to what life was like before the Malling of Downtown. It is hard to believe today that Downtown was once the center of retail life in St. Louis with three highrise department stores: Famous Barr, Stix Baer & Fuller and Scruggs Vandervoort Barney each with half a million square feet of floor space or more, and hundreds of street level retail stores in between. Even while malls and suburban branches of the big three department stores rose in the 1950's and 60's, Downtown continued to attract shoppers and retained a thriving retail scene through the 1970's and even the early 1980's. Shoppers and a Bi-State bus cross the intersection of 6th & Locust in the late 1970's or early 1980's. The Woolworths occupied the corner that would become one of the main entrances to the St. Louis Centre mall. Photo from Randy Vines of STL Style. the intersection of 6th & Washington in 1959 looking south. Kresge's occupied the southeast corner. The gap between buildings next to the Lerner Shops is St. Charles Street, which at the time ran continuous through this part of Downtown. This photo and all below are from the Western Historical Manuscript Collection at UMSL's Thomas Jefferson Library. The intersection of 7th & Olive in the 1976 with Florsheim Shoe's at the northwest corner. A mounted patrol officer take a break at the corner of 7th & Olive in front of Famous Barr in 1976. Looking north on 7th Street, Stix Bear & Fuller can be seen in the distance. The intersection of 6th and Washington in 1976. Stix Baer and Fuller built a special Bicentennial Candy Shop at the corner of their store. Another view of 7th and Washington crowded with shoppers in front of Stix Baer & Fuller In this post-St. Louis Centre era, the streets of Downtown have once again become a destination for shopping with over 80 unique retail stores, restaurants and service businesses opening since 2000. So this Black Friday stay in bed, skip the 3am big box madness sales and head Downtown for your holiday shopping fix. Macy's Downtown store does open at 5am for you early birds, however most stores run normal hours. This year the Partnership for Downtown St. Louis has come up with an easy way to give with the Downtown St. Louis Gift Card, which can be used at over 100 Downtown retail stores and restaurants. Happy Thanksgiving!
Merry Christmas from Old Busch Stadium - Former home of the St. Louis Cardinals. Videos can be found at my on my Youtube account: www.youtube.com/KielMan316
St. Louis Restaurant Review - Best Restaurants in St. Louis - Restaurant News & Reviews - Read news about the best restaurants in the St. Louis.
When I was a little girl, my mother would take me out to lunch once a month. One of my favorite places to eat was the Jade Room Restaurant contained within one of St. Louis' two big department stores, Famous-Barr (now Macy's). This was back in the day when people would dress to go out to dine. No slacks allowed! A hostess would seat us, and while we waited for our meals, beautifully dressed models would walk among the tables wearing the latest fashions available in the store, well-accessorized, and bearing the fragrance du jour. Sometimes they would stop at our table and describe what they were wearing, its price and size availability. For a ten-year-old girl like me, it was magical! Sometimes my dad would meet us for lunch, but mostly it was just mother and me. My lunch order never varied: hamburger, chocolate milk, and Jell-O. As I got older the lunches continued, but the dress code relaxed and the menu changed. No longer did I order the hamburger, but the John White Burger, a decadent hamburger sandwich with crispy onions and melted cheese. I crave that burger to this day. It was named for one of the cooks from the Clayton location of Famous-Barr, and was eventually offered at all of May Company's department-store restaurants. It stayed on the menus until White died and his heirs sued over use of the name. In 2000, Eric Dahl, longtime chef for Famous-Barr, told Judith Evans of the Post-Dispatch the secret to the burger is the onions. Slice them thinly, and then cook in 1/2 inch of hot oil or shortening. Remove onions when they are light brown; if you cook them too long, they will become bitter. Drain well on paper towels. To assemble the burgers, use toasted buns, grilled or broiled hamburger patties made from ground beef that is 85 percent lean, the onions, and a rarebit sauce thick enough to stay on the burgers. Dahl said the sauce included American cheese, dry mustard, and Worcestershire sauce. Here is a recipe that seems to fit the bill, at least it certainly pleased me this evening! RAREBIT SAUCE FOR JOHN WHITE BURGERS 1/2 pound American cheese, cut into thin slices 3/4 cup half-and-half 1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce 1/2 teaspoon dry mustard Place cheese in the top of a double boiler. Add half-and-half, Worcestershire and mustard. Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until cheese melts. Yield: 4 servings. Recipe adapted from The Fairy Tale Cookbook by Carol MacGregor. This post is linked to: Tuesdays at the Table Delicious Dishes Real Food Wednesday Tuesday's Tasty Tidbits What's Cooking Wednesday No Whine Wednesdays What's on Your Plate
