The Ladies' Mile Historic District was a prime shopping district in Manhattan, New York City at the end of the 19th century, serving the well-to-do "carriage trade" of the city. It was designated in May 1989, by the New York City Landmark Preservation Commission to preserve an irregular district of 440 buildings on 28 blocks and parts of blocks, from roughly 15th Street to 24th Street and from Park Avenue South to west of the Avenue of the Americas. Community groups such as the Drive to Protect the Ladies' Mile District and the Historic Districts Council campaigned heavily for the status.
(right to left) Hugh O'Neill's, Adams and Ehrich Brothers dry goods emporia
(left to right) Cammeyer, Alexander, Siegel-Cooper Dry Goods and Price buildings
B. Altman and Company
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B. Altman and Company was a luxury department store and chain, founded in 1865 in New York City, New York, by Benjamin Altman. Its flagship store, the B. Altman and Company Building at Fifth Avenue and 34th Street in Midtown Manhattan, operated from 1906 until the company closed the store at the end of 1989. Branch stores were all shuttered by the end of January 1990.
Lithograph of flagship Fifth Avenue store circa 1915
Image: B. Altman Logo
B. Altman's Fifth Avenue store, which is now home to The Graduate Center of The City University of New York, Church Pension Group, and Oxford University Press
Altman's store on Sixth Avenue in the Ladies' Mile shopping district