Saks Fifth Avenue
611 5th Avenue | also 10 East 50th Street | Midtown | built 1924
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Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.
- 1920
Saks leases the Buckingham Hotel and Belgravia Apartments, the buildings it would replace
In April 1920 Saks & Company leased the Buckingham Hotel and the Belgravia Apartments, which stood along Fifth Avenue from 49th to 50th Street, in a deal given as $35 million. The Real Estate Record called the block a new northern outpost for large retail trade. Starrett & Van Vleck filed plans for a nine-story store in June 1921, and demolition of the two older buildings began later that year.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1923
A Democratic Club brownstone holds out in the middle of the future Saks site
Horace Saks bought the Buckingham Hotel and the Belgravia Apartments on the block between 49th and 50th Streets, but a four-story brownstone housing the New York Democratic Club stood in the middle and would sell only at the top price. His architects first drew a U-shaped store wrapping around the clubhouse, a plan he dropped as impractical. Short of cash, Saks merged with Bernard Gimbel's company in 1923, then bought out the club and began building the new store.
- 1923
Saks merges with Gimbel Brothers, which takes over its Herald Square lease and debt
In April 1923 Saks & Company merged with Gimbel Brothers, owned by Horace Saks's cousin Bernard Gimbel. Gimbel assumed the Herald Square lease, cleared Saks's debt and purchased $8 million of the company's stock. The Fifth Avenue store then became a joint venture between the two families, and it was known as Saks-Fifth Avenue, with a hyphen.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1924
Saks Fifth Avenue opens to a crowd so large that stenographers are sent to sell
On opening day the management reported the largest throng of shoppers the city had ever seen, and young stenographers were pulled from their desks to work as salespeople. The first parcel to leave the store held a silk hat in a leather hatbox, addressed to President Coolidge at the White House. Jack Dempsey and Mayor Hylan both had lunch with Horace Saks that day, and a false rumor that the Prince of Wales was in the sixth-floor men's shop set off a stampede of women.
- 1924
Starrett & Van Vleck's store wins the Fifth Avenue Association's gold medal
Starrett & Van Vleck, specialists in department stores, designed a ten-story building faced in Indiana limestone, brick and cast stone, in a restrained neo-Renaissance style. It was the first Fifth Avenue department store built to follow the city's new setback rules, with administrative offices on the stepped-back upper floors. Because it suited the avenue's genteel character, the Fifth Avenue Association awarded it its yearly gold medal for the finest new building completed in 1924.
“…the Fifth Avenue Association to award the store its annual Gold Medal for the best new building of the year…”
- 1924
Saks opens with a $3,000 pigskin trunk in the window and a number board to summon chauffeurs
On opening day the store's display windows showed a $3,000 pigskin trunk, $1,000 raccoon coats, chauffeur's livery and foot muffs meant for car trips. A numbering board above the 50th Street entrance let staff call up chauffeurs to collect wealthy customers at the door. Saks reportedly had some fifty thousand charge accounts open by the end of the year, among them most of the city's wealthiest families.
“…opened with its display windows showing such luxury items as a $3000 pigskin trunk, $1000 racoon coats, chauffer's livery, and "foot muffs…”
- 1924
A rumor that the Prince of Wales is shopping sends women stampeding through Saks
On opening day a rumor went around the store that the Prince of Wales was in the sixth-floor men's shop, and women stampeded there even after the store denied it. The only apparent basis was an English leather bag that had been shipped to him from the store. Mayor Hylan and the boxer Jack Dempsey turned up shortly before noon as luncheon guests of vice president Horace Saks.
“There was a stampede to the men's shop on the sixth floor when a report spread through the store that the Prince of Wales was there. He was not…”
- 1929
Sophie Gimbel begins four decades running the custom-clothes department
Sophie Gimbel ran the store's custom department for forty years, from 1929 until 1969. She was the wife of the company's president and designed elegant clothes for its clients, and she is credited with introducing women's culottes to American shoppers. The Saks brothers had withdrawn from running the company in 1926.
“From 1929 to 1969, Sophie Gimbel led the store's custom department.”
Source: Wikipedia
- 1935
Saks opens a ski department with its own slope and lessons
In 1935 the store introduced a ski department complete with a ski slope and skiing classes, a novelty for a Fifth Avenue clothing store. By 1938 Fortune magazine described the Fifth Avenue store as upscale, in contrast with the crowded bargain tables of the company's older Herald Square branch, which closed in the 1960s.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1952
The land under Saks is sold to William Zeckendorf, who passes it to the Rockefellers a year later
The ground under the store had been split: Saks Realty owned the former Democratic Club plot, and the George Kemp Company owned the rest until it bought the club plot in 1935 and held the whole site. In 1952 the Fifth Avenue site was sold to William Zeckendorf, who passed it on to the Rockefeller family the next year.
“The Fifth Avenue site was sold in 1952 to William Zeckendorf, who the following year sold it to the Rockefeller family.”
Source: Wikipedia
- 1984
The Landmarks Commission designates Saks, clearing the way for a tower behind it
Saks entered a 1981 joint venture to build a tower east of its store, but the store's lot and the adjoining parcel sat in different zoning districts, and air rights could move between them only if the flagship were a landmark. Saks backed designation, and the commission made it a landmark on December 20, 1984. The tower, finished in 1990 for Swiss Bank Corporation, took Saks's Fifth Avenue address and added selling floors to the store.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1990
Saks opens five floors of its new tower, adding 110,000 square feet of selling space
On the morning of April 9, 1990, Saks opened five floors of its new tower east of the main store, adding 110,000 square feet. Walls behind the escalators came down on floors four through eight so shoppers could pass between old and new. Women's shoes moved to the fourth floor, with Bruno Magli and Joan and David boutiques, and the eighth floor gained a baby department styled like a child's room. It was the store's first expansion since 1924.
Source: Internet Archive
- 2007
The eighth-floor shoe department gets its own ZIP code, 10022-SHOE
The Associated Press reported that Saks's expanded shoe department, moving from the fourth to the eighth floor, would have its own ZIP code: 10022-SHOE. Saks worked with the Postal Service on it, though only the last four digits, which are optional for mail, were custom. The new 8,500-square-foot showroom added a VIP room for private shopping, seating, refreshments and on-site shoe repair.
Source: usatoday30.usatoday.com
- 2023
Saks bids to put a casino on its top three floors, then drops the plan in 2025
In January 2023 Saks put forward a bid for a casino occupying roughly 200,000 square feet that went unused on the top three floors of the 611 Fifth Avenue store. The plan faced obstacles: the local community board opposed all such projects in the area, the store is a city landmark with complicated renovation rules, and Saks never named a gambling partner. In April 2025 the company folded the bid to focus on other strategic priorities.
Source: commercialobserver.com
Further reading
- Saks Fifth Avenue flagship storeWikipedia
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