Bond Clothing Stores, Bond Clothes, Bond Clothiers, or Bond Stores, was a men's clothing manufacturing company and retailer. The company catered to the middle-class consumer.

History

The company was founded in

Cleveland, Ohio Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U.S. ...

in 1914, when Mortimer Slater, with

Charles Anson Bond Charles Anson Bond (February 3, 1873 – January 5, 1943) was the 37th mayor of Columbus, Ohio, USA, and the 34th person to hold that office. Career Bond was elected on November 5, 1907, and served one term. The campaign was one of the dirties ...

and Lester Cohen, founded the stores as a retail outlet for their suit manufacturing company. Charles Anson Bond, whose name was chosen for its market value and meaning left Cleveland for Columbus, Ohio where he opened a branch of the company. Bond stepped away from active management when he was elected mayor of Columbus in 1907. The first store featured fifteen-dollar men's suits. As president, Slater built the concern into a million-dollar corporation, increasing the number of employees from 50 to more than 4,000. At his retirement in 1924, the concern had 28 stores in large cities. Charles Anson Bond also sold his interests in the 1920s. Bond Stores, Inc. was organized in Maryland on March 19, 1937, by the consolidation of Bond Clothing Company, a Maryland corporation, and its subsidiary, Bond Stores, Inc. The principal executive offices of the corporation were located at 261 Fifth Avenue in New York City. During the 1930s and 1940s, it became the largest retail chain of men's clothing in the United States, best known for selling two-pant suits. In 1975, the company was sold to foreign investors, then broken up and sold in smaller groups to its management. For instance, 13 stores were operated by the Proud Wind, Inc. company."Bonds to Close F Street Store Jan. 23," by Jerry Knight, ''The Washington Post'', December 18, 1981, p. D7.

Manufacturing operations

In 1933, company president Barney S. Ruben (1885–1959) moved the manufacturing center of Bond Clothes from

New Brunswick, New Jersey New Brunswick is a city (New Jersey), city in and the county seat, seat of government of Middlesex County, New Jersey, Middlesex County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey.Rochester, New York where he spent his youth and got his start in the clothing industry with

Fashion Park Clothes Fashion Park Clothes was a Rochester, New York-based manufacturer of men's tailored suits and apparel. They were located a432 Portland Avein Rochester, NY. They operated from the 1910s into the 1960s. In 1928, another Rochester-based clothing m ...

. By the end of the 1930s, the manufacturer grew to employ over 2,500 people. During the 1940s the company expanded to larger manufacturing facilities on North Goodman St. In 1956, wholly owned manufacturing plants operated at New Brunswick, New York City, and Rochester. The Rochester facility was later sold to

General Dynamics General Dynamics Corporation (GD) is an American publicly traded, aerospace and defense corporation headquartered in Reston, Virginia. As of 2020, it was the fifth-largest defense contractor in the world by arms sales, and 5th largest in the Uni ...

and is now occupied by Bausch and Lomb contact lens manufacturing. The company's manufacturing facilities remained in Rochester until 1979, when the factory was finally closed.

Retail stores

Bond Stores operated numerous retail outlets in the United States. Principally a men's clothier, by the mid-1950s some stores also carried women's clothing and later became known as "family apparel centers." In 1956, the chain operated nearly 100 outlets from coast to coast in principal cities, in addition to more than 50 agency stores that sold goods in smaller communities. In the late 1960s there were around 150 retail outlets. By 1982, that number had dwindled to 50. Around 1970, new management knowledgeable in fashions took over Bond Clothes, but their knowledge of the retail clothing industry did nothing to save Bond Clothes from its eventual demise.

New York City

Its New York City flagship store was at 372

Fifth Avenue Fifth Avenue is a major and prominent thoroughfare in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It stretches north from Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village to West 143rd Street in Harlem. It is one of the most expensive shopping stre ...

at 35th Street, the former flagship of Best & Co. Known as "Bond Fifth Avenue," they began leasing the store and the adjoining 12-story office tower from Best & Co. in 1947. In 1948, Bond renovated the entire building with ultra-modern interiors under the direction of designer Morris Lapidus. Bond stayed in the building until the mid-1970s. The building has most recently been redeveloped by the Paratis Group as a commercial / residential complex known as the "372 Fifth Avenue Loft." The company also operated a store at Times Square. That outlet opened in 1940, was dubbed "the cathedral of clothing."New York Architecture Images- Midtown (Times Square) (accessed September 16, 2008)
The store closed in 1977. Starting in 1980, the building was a dance club called Bond International Casino, notable for hosting a concert by The Clash in 1981. The building housed a

restaurant A restaurant is a business that prepares and serves food and drinks to customers. Meals are generally served and eaten on the premises, but many restaurants also offer take-out and food delivery services. Restaurants vary greatly in appearan ...

calle
Bond 45
until December 2015. The site currently houses a GAP and Old Navy since 2017.

Greater Los Angeles

Bond's built its nine-story Los Angeles flagship in what was then the city's primary shopping district, at 640 S. Broadway in 1939. That flagship is now the Pavo Real Jewelry Center, but the large Bond sign still runs down the vertical length of the building. By 1960 the chain had stores on Wilshire Boulevard's Miracle Mile,

Crenshaw Center Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza (alternately BHCP) is a shopping mall located in the Baldwin Hills neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. This was one of the first regional shopping centers in the United States built specifically for the auto ...

, and Hollywood Boulevard; in Anaheim Plaza, the El Monte Shopping Center, on Whittier Boulevard in

East Los Angeles East Los Angeles ( es, Este de Los Ángeles), or East L.A., is an unincorporated area in Los Angeles County, California. As of the 2020 census it had a population of 118,786, a drop of 6.1% from 2010, when it was 126,496. For statistical purpo ...

, Brand Bouelvard in

Glendale Glendale is the anglicised version of the Gaelic Gleann Dail, which means ''valley of fertile, low-lying arable land''. It may refer to: Places Australia * Glendale, New South Wales ** Stockland Glendale, a shopping centre *Glendale, Queensland, ...

, in Huntington Park, Lakewood Center, Valley Plaza in North Hollywood, Panorama City Shopping Center,

Eastland Shopping Center Eastland Center, formerly Westfield Eastland/Eastland Shopping Center, is a shopping center in West Covina, California, currently managed by Pine Tree, LLC. Westfield America, Inc., a precursor to Westfield Group, acquired the shopping center ...

in West Covina, and

Westchester Westchester most commonly refers to Westchester County, New York, immediately north of New York City. __NOTOC__ It may also refer to: Geography Canada *Westchester Station, Nova Scotia, Canada United States *Town of Westchester, the original seat ...

Washington, D.C., and vicinity

Bond Stores first entered the Washington, D.C., market in 1925. In Washington, D.C., the local flagship store was at 1335 F Street, NW, in the heart of the downtown shopping district. It opened in the early 1930s and closed in January 1982. Suburban locations in Northern Virginia operated at

Landmark Mall Landmark Mall (or Landmark Regional Shopping Center) (formally Landmark Center) was an American shopping mall. Located in a triangle formed by Duke Street ( Virginia State Route 236), Interstate 395, and Van Dorn Street ( Virginia State Route 4 ...

in Alexandria (opened 1966) and

Seven Corners Shopping Center Seven Corners Shopping Center was the first major shopping center to open in suburban Washington, D.C. It is located in Seven Corners, Fairfax County, Virginia. At its opening in 1956, it was the largest regional shopping center in Virginia. The ...

Falls Church Falls Church is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia. As of the 2020 census, the population was 14,658. Falls Church is included in the Washington metropolitan area. Taking its name from The Falls Church, an 18th-century Churc ...

(opened October 1956, closed 1976). Outlets in suburban Maryland operated at Montgomery Mall in Bethesda,

Prince George's Plaza A prince is a Monarch, male ruler (ranked below a king, grand prince, and grand duke) or a male member of a monarch's or former monarch's family. ''Prince'' is also a title of nobility (often highest), often hereditary title, hereditary, in s ...

in Hyattsville (opened 1959, closed ca. 1982), and

Marlow Heights Shopping Center The Marlow Heights Shopping Center is an open-air shopping complex located in Marlow Heights, Maryland, on Branch Avenue (Maryland Route 5) at St. Barnabas Road ( Maryland Route 414), and is positioned just south of Shops at Iverson. History The ...

at Marlow Heights.

Cleveland, Ohio

During the late 1940s, Bond built one of its last stand alone downtown stores. Designed in a high concept art moderne style in Cleveland at Euclid Avenue and East Ninth Street in 1946/7. The structure replaced a previous building built in 1920. The structure used the site's sharp angle to its advantage by creating a tower crowned with windows facing inbound Euclid Avenue traffic".The Bond Store (accessed July 7, 2018)
The circular forms of the tower were repeated in the roof's overhang. On the Euclid Avenue and East Ninth Street facades, open gill-like projections held vertical window columns facing east and south. The building was faced with rose granite sheets and the BOND name was illuminated in red neon. Inside, the round themes were repeated in ceiling moldings, mirrors, and plaster reliefs. Following Bond's closure, the structure stood for many years until it was razed in the 1970s.

Chicago, Illinois

240 S State Street, 1954 +

Buffalo, New York

Bond Stores operated at least two locations in the Buffalo, New York area. In 1940, they took over the Givens, Inc. women's and children's apparel store at 452-54 Main Street in downtown Buffalo. A suburban location opened in 1962, at the new

Boulevard Mall Boulevard Mall is a shopping center located north of the city of Buffalo at the western edge of the Town of Amherst in Erie County, New York, United States. The name derives from its location on Niagara Falls Boulevard (U.S. Route 62), which d ...

.Rizzo, Michael F. (2007) ''Nine Nine Eight: The Glory Days of Buffalo Shopping'' Lulu Enterprises, Inc.; Morrisville, North Carolina. .

Dallas, Texas

Two Bond Stores were located at 1500 Main Street (

Southwestern Life Insurance Building The Southwestern Life Insurance Building was a 16-story, 110,000 sf high-rise in Downtown Dallas, Texas, designed by Lang & Witchell architects in the Sullivanesque style. It was built in 1912 and demolished 1972. Today it is the site of Pegasus P ...

) and 1530 Main Street, now

The Joule Hotel The Joule Hotel is a five-star, 164-room hotel developed by Headington Hotels, owned by Timothy Headington. Located at 1530 Main Street, between Akard Street and Ervay Street, the building was constructed in 1927 as the Dallas National Bank Buildi ...

. Also in the 1960's - 1970's, there was a Bond Store in North Park Mall, 8687 N US 75-Central Expressway.

Times Square sign

Between 1948 and 1954, Bond Clothes operated a massive sign on the east side block of Broadway between 44th and 45th streets in New York's Times Square. The sign had nearly 2 miles of neon and included two 7-story-tall nude figures, a man and a woman, as bookends. Between the nude figures, there was a and waterfall with 50,000 gallons of recirculated water. Beneath the waterfall was a zipper sign with scrolling messages. The Bond zipper was made up of more than 20,000 light bulbs. Above the waterfall was a digital clock with the wording "Every Hour 3,490 People Buy at Bond." Some of the sign remained in place to advertise the Bond Stores location until the store's closure in 1977. Bond Waterfall sign night

References

{{reflist

External links

New York Architecture Images- Midtown (Times Square) includes postcards showing Times Square Bond Clothes sign (accessed September 16, 2008)

Defunct retail companies of the United States Clothing manufacturers American companies established in 1914 Retail companies established in 1914 Clothing companies established in 1914 Retail companies disestablished in 1989 Companies based in New York City Defunct companies based in New York City Retail companies based in New York City