| Industry | Retail |
|---|---|
| Fate | Liquidation |
| Founded | 1893 |
| Defunct | 1977 |
| Headquarters | Philadelphia, Pennsylvania |
| Products | General Merchandise |
| Parent | City Stores, Inc. |
Lit Brothers was a moderate priced department store based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Samuel and Jacob Lit opened the first store at Eight and Market Streets in 1893.
Lit's positioned itself well as a more affordable alternate to competitors, Strawbridge and Clothier, Wanamaker's, and Gimbels. The store's tag line was "A Great Store in A Great City", and it was noted for its millinery department. It was purchased in 1928 by Albert M. Greenfield's Bankers Securities Corporation and was eventually merged into its City Stores Company (now CSS Industries, Inc.), a retail holding company consisting of stores located in urban centers throughout the south and east such as the W & J Sloane furniture store, and the Washington, D.C.–based department store chain Lansburgh's.[1] In 1962, they purchased the suburban locations of Snellenburg's, another Philadelphia department store chain owned by Bankers Securities Corporation, which was closed in 1963. The Lit Brothers chain subsequently closed in 1977.
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Lit Brothers Department Store
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| Location: | Market St. between 7th and 8th Sts., Philadelphia, Pennsylvania |
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| Built: | 1859-1918 |
| Architect: | Collins & Autenreith; Simon & Bassett |
| Architectural style: | Colonial Revival |
| Governing body: | Private |
| NRHP Reference#: | 79002322[2] |
| Added to NRHP: | May 15, 1979 |
The flagship store opened in 1907, and occupied a full city block bounded by Market, 7th, Filbert, and 8th Streets. The store was an assemblage of 33 buildings built between 1859 and 1918, which were joined so the interior appeared as one building.[3] The unique façade of this building's front on Market Street caused it to become known as the "cast iron" building. The architects were Charles M. Autenrieth and his partner Edward Collins.
After the chain closed in 1977, the store was vacant until redeveloped as office and commercial space in the late 1980s. The building reopened as Mellon Independence Center, after its principal occupant Mellon Bank. The sign reading "Hats Trimmed Free of Charge" can still be seen today on the façade of the redeveloped flagship building. The historic 720,000-square-foot (67,000 m2) building was recently on the market for $70 million.[4]
Lit's also joined its fellow Center City department stores in presenting a Christmas Season exhibit when, in 1961, it opened the Enchanted Colonial Village. The Village, designed by Philadelphia display designer Thomas Comerford, cost approximately $1 million. It was built by German toy manufacturer Christian Hofmann of Bad Rodach, West Germany. This room-by-room display of a colonial-era Christmas ran each year from Thanksgiving to New Year's Eve, and remained until the final Christmas season in 1976. The exhibit itself was bought from liquidators for $35,000 by the Sun Oil Company, who later donated it to the Atwater Kent Museum. It has since been restored, and (since 2001) sections are displayed around the holiday season at the Please Touch Museum.[5]
Lit's saw the growing demand for suburban locations, and started building stores in mall locations around the greater Philadelphia market, including southern New Jersey. Lit's also operated a store in nearby downtown Camden, and Lit's was the only one of Philadelphia's department stores to maintain a branch along the New Jersey Shore, when it acquired the Blatt Department Store in downtown Atlantic City, and re-branded this location as Lit's. Additional suburban locations were added with the acquisition of Snellenburg's in 1962.
Faced with growing competition in a changing retail landscape, Lit Brothers closed its doors in 1977. One of Lit's larger competitors, Gimbels, built a new store in Center City as part of The Gallery Mall in 1977, and while Lit's was only one block away from The Gallery, not being a direct part of the popular new complex hurt sales at its important flagship location. The famous flagship location sat vacant for a number of years, and was rescued and redeveloped as a regional headquarters for Mellon Bank, with retail stores on the street floor, and a food court on the lower level. For a few years after the building reopened in the mid-1980s, sections of the Enchanted Colonial Village were displayed in the retail section during the holiday shopping season.
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