THE SAMUEL H. KRESS FOUNDATION

Every Kress store was a gift of civic art to its community. Grandest of all was Edward Sibbert's masterpiece, the Kress flagship store at the corner of Fifth Avenue and 39th Street in New York City, opened in 1935. A seven-story marble structure designed for every shopping comfort, its Art Deco elegance was graced by airborne Mayan gods on the sales floor and Mayan-style hieroglyphs of the gloves and padlocks and yard goods for sale. Awarded a gold medal for architectural quality, the store was the zenith of the Kress empire in luxury, modernity, and retailing capacity. In December 1938, it was also the locale of the most astonishing Christmas display in the history of Fifth Avenue - Samuel Kress's recent acquisition of Giorgione's Allendale Nativity, placed on view to holiday shoppers. Like most of the Kress stores across the nation, the Fifth Avenue emporium was supremely successful on its own terms in its own time, and its demolition in 1980 marked the end of an American era.

Generally neglected by architectural historians, the study of 20th-century commercial architecture deserves more attention. For additional information on the history of the Kress stores, and splendid illustrations, see America’s 5 & 10 Cent Stores: the Kress Legacy, by Bernice L. Thomas, 1997. The National Building Museum in Washington DC possesses an archive of the building history of 221 Kress stores in 28 states and has published A Guide to the Building Records of S. H. Kress & Co. 5-10-25 Cent Stores at the National Building Museum, 1993.

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