May Company California

A. Hamburger & Sons "The People's Store" edit

Main Street store edit

May Company California can trace its roots to the store that Asher Hamburger and his sons Moses, David and Solomon had established in Los Angeles after their recent move from Sacramento. This store first opened on October 29, 1881, in a 20-by-75-foot room on Main Street near Requena Street and was original known as The People's Store featuring clearly printed "One Price" tags.^[3][4]

Spring Street store edit

In 1882, only one year later, Hamburger's moved to the Ponet-Bumiller Block at 45 North Spring Street (post-1890 numbering: 145 North Spring), southwest corner of Temple, in a space of 46 by 100 feet. Later, it expanded into the north half of the ground floor of the newly built Phillips Block, northwest corner of Spring and Franklin, then in 1887 into the south half. In April 1899 it added the Ponet store 20 feet to the north of the Bumiller Block.

Phillips Block — largest store in the West edit

In 1899, Hamburger's renovated and took over the entire Phillips Block, all four floors plus the cellar. The space officially opened June 1, 1899 and the store claimed at that time to have 3.5 acres (150,000 sq ft; 14,000 m²) of floor space^[5] and to be the largest retail store in the Western United States.^[6] Later Hamburger's added an additional 2,500 square feet (230 m²) onto its back side on New High Street^[7][8][9]

1908: An even larger “largest store in the West” edit

By the start of the 20th century, A. Hamburger & Sons had outgrown its Spring Street location, which had 520 employees working on five floors.^[10] The Hamburger family decided to build a much larger store at the southeast corner of Broadway and Eighth, a location that was outside of then current retail district. Construction started in 1905, with a grand opening held in 1908.^{[11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23]} This location, which was also known as the Great White Store, was the largest department store building west of Chicago at the time and would eventually become the flagship location for the May Company California. At the time that the Great White Store was opened, the store could boast of having one of the first escalators on the West Coast, several restaurants, a drug store, grocery store, bakery, fruit store, meat market, U.S. post office, telegraph office, barber shop, a dentist, a chiropractor, a medical doctor, an auditorium, an electricity and steam power plant in the basement that was large enough to support a city of 50,000 inhabitants, a private volunteer 120 men fire brigade,^[24][25] 13 acres of retail space (482,475 sq.ft., larger than all the department, clothing and dry goods stores in the city), and 1200 employees.^{[14][26][27][28][29][30]} The Los Angeles Public Library was also located on the third floor from 1908^[31] until it was forced to move to a larger location when it outgrew the Hamburger space by 1913.^[32][33][34] For a short time, Woodbury Business College briefly was also located on the fifth floor.^[35] Circa 1912, there was a temporary free public menagerie on the fourth floor of 50 animals including a cassowary, a sun bear, an orangutan, a 28 ft (8.5 m)-long python, monkeys and iridescent birds.^[36][37][38]

Expansion to over one million square feet edit

The store continued to expand until it took up the entire block bounded by Broadway, Hill, 8th and 9th. In 1923, a nine-story addition was built on Hill Street. With the addition of a new nine-story, 250,000 sq ft (23,000 m²) building in 1930 it then measured over 1,000,000 sq ft (93,000 m²) of floor space. In the mid-1920s May Company also built a warehouse at Grand and Jefferson and in 1927 a nine-story parking garage at 9th and Hill streets.^[39]

1923: Sale to May edit

On March 31, 1923, the Hamburgers sold their store to the May family of St. Louis for $8.5 million (~$118 million in 2023).^[40][41] Thomas and Wilbur May, sons of the founder of the May Company, were sent to manage the former Hamburger store. One of the first things that they did was to expand the store again by building adjacent additions on the other parts of the city block.^[42][43] After several more years, the May Company store eventually occupied almost the entire block between Broadway and Hill and between 8th and 9th Streets. The old Hamburger store was officially renamed the May Company in 1925.^[44][45]

1939: first branch, Wilshire Boulevard edit

To keep pace with the extreme growth in population within Southern California during the Great Depression, May Company opened the first branch store in 1939 on Wilshire at Fairfax at a cost of $2 million (~$34.4 million in 2023).^{[46][47][48][49][50]}

1947: Crenshaw branch edit

After World War II, a second branch store was opened on October 10, 1947^[51] along Crenshaw Boulevard at the northeast corner of Santa Barbara St. (now M. L. King, Jr. Blvd.). The store would later be integrated into the Broadway-anchored Crenshaw Plaza directly across the street to the south.^{[52][53][54][55][56]}

A proposed store in Hollywood that was planned at the same time was never built.^[52][57][58]

1952–1992: suburban expansion edit

From 1952 to 1992 May opened stores across suburban Los Angeles and Southern California (see table below).May Company-Lakewood opened at Lakewood Center on February 18, 1952, the four-level, 346,700-square-foot (32,210 m²)^[59] May Company-Lakewood was the largest suburban department store in the world.^[60]

The North Hollywood store, opened in 1955 and originally marketed as part of the Valley Plaza shopping district, was a very large at 452,000 square feet (42,000 m²), and claimed to be the second-largest suburban branch department store in the country, outsized only by a branch of Hudson's in suburban Detroit.^[61]

1992: Merger into Robinsons-May edit

On October 17, 1992, May Company California's parent, May Department Stores, announced the merger of May Company California with its sister company J.W. Robinson's to form Robinsons-May, thus ending the May Company California existence.^[62][63][64] It was also announced that the Wilshire store along with the stores in West Covina, Buena Park, Santa Ana, and San Bernardino were scheduled to close by the end of January 1993.

Disposal of older stores edit

During the early part of this division existence, May Company was also the developer of some other early shopping centers and malls which grew around the initially stand-alone stores, with the Crenshaw location being the first example.

The first May Company store, the original Hamburger's, at Broadway and 8th in downtown Los Angeles was closed when it was replaced by the just opened 7th Market Place store in 1986.^[65] This building is designated as Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument No. 459. After its sale, the building was primary used by small clothing manufacturing companies.^[66] In 2013, the then current owners were trying to sell the building since the surrounding area is being actively redeveloped.^[67] It was announced in April 2014 that Waterbridge Capital agreed to purchase the property, but had not given out too many details on how they might go about to develop it, except to state it would be mixed-use.^[68][69]

During the 1980s, the parent corporation tried to replace the iconic Wilshire store for several years by getting involved with mall development at Farmers Market.^[70] However the development that eventually became The Grove at Farmers Market was delayed for nearly two decades. The St. Louis-based parent company eventually withdrew from the project and the Wilshire store was never replaced when May Company California was later merged with Robinson in 1993. After closing, the Streamline Moderne style building was sold to Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 1994^[71] and is currently slated to house The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures.^[72]

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  Christmas advertisement, 1905
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  Hamburger's People's Store Spring Street 1880s
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  Hamburger's People's Store after construction of and expansion into the Philips Block, Spring Street ca. 1890s
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  Terrazzo at the entrance of the Downtown Los Angeles flagship

• On the Jack Benny radio and television programs, Benny was said to have met his girlfriend Mary Livingstone (played by his real-life wife, Sadie Marks) at the May Company when she worked there in the hosiery department.^[164] This is one of the few instances in radio or television history where a real business was made part of the story. (Jack and Mary Benny actually met through friends and not at a department store.^[165])

• In Andre de Toth's 1948 film noir Pitfall, Lizabeth Scott's character, Mona Stevens, is depicted working in the fine dresses department of the May Company's Wilshire Boulevard location.^[166]

• May Company Building (Broadway, Los Angeles)
• May Company Building (Wilshire, Los Angeles)
• May Company Building (Mission Valley, San Diego)