Stewart's Department Store, also known as the Posner Building, is a historic

department store A department store is a retail establishment offering a wide range of consumer goods in different areas of the store under one roof, each area ("department") specializing in a product category. In modern major cities, the department store mad ...

building located on Howard Street at

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Maryland Maryland ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It borders the states of Virginia to its south, West Virginia to its west, Pennsylvania to its north, and Delaware to its east ...

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is currently headquartered there.

Architecture

The Stewart's Department Store structure was designed in 1899 by Charles E. Cassell and is a six-story brick and

terra cotta Terracotta, also known as terra cotta or terra-cotta (; ; ), is a clay-based Vitrification#Ceramics, non-vitreous ceramicOED, "Terracotta""Terracotta" MFA Boston, "Cameo" database fired at relatively low temperatures. It is therefore a term used ...

steel-framed building Steel frame is a building technique with a "skeleton frame" of vertical steel columns and horizontal I-beams, constructed in a rectangular grid to support the floors, roof and walls of a building which are all attached to the frame. The develop ...

detailed in a highly ornate

Italian Renaissance Revival Renaissance Revival architecture (sometimes referred to as "Neo-Renaissance") is a group of 19th-century Revivalism (architecture), architectural revival styles which were neither Greek Revival architecture, Greek Revival nor Gothic Revival ar ...

style. It features an exuberant ornamental detail includes fluted Ionic and Corinthian columns, lion heads, caryatids, wreaths, garlands, cartouches, and an elaborate bracketed cornice. The Stewart's Department Store Building was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

in 1999. The downtown flagship store was closed in 1978.

History

Stewart's began in 1901 when Louis Stewart acquired the building of Posner's Department Store on the northeast corner of

Howard Howard is a masculine given name derived from the English surname Howard. ''The Oxford Dictionary of English Christian Names'' notes that "the use of this surname as a christian name is quite recent and there seems to be no particular reason for ...

and Lexington Streets. The chain was a founding member of

Associated Dry Goods Associated Dry Goods Corporation (ADG) was a chain of department stores that merged with May Department Stores in 1986. It was founded in 1916 as an association of independent stores called American Dry Goods, based in New York City. History ...

or ADG. While many of Baltimore's downtown department stores during the 19th and early 20th centuries were founded by

German-Jewish The history of the Jews in Germany goes back at least to the year 321 CE, and continued through the Early Middle Ages (5th to 10th centuries CE) and High Middle Ages (c. 1000–1299 CE) when Jewish immigrants founded the Ashkenazi Jewish commu ...

immigrants, Stewart's was a non-Jewish owned department store, although the original founders Samuel and Elias Posner were Jewish. Stewart's opened its first suburban store in 1953. The store on York Road was located near the city/county line. Built on two levels and surrounded by parking, the store was designed to “blend into the suburban area around it.” The design included broad expanses of glass from floor to ceiling, “screened by Fiberglas curtains containing 600 square yards of materials.” Elaborate murals of Homewood House, the Washington Monument and the Federal Hill skyline decorated walls in the store, and a restaurant with a Chesapeake Bay theme became a destination for northern shoppers. Four other stores followed in the 1960s and 1970s. They included

Reisterstown Road Plaza The Reisterstown Road Plaza, usually known since its inception simply as ''"The Plaza,"'' is a shopping center and mall located near the Reisterstown Plaza Metro Subway Station. Originally built as an outdoor shopping center (with two parallel r ...

in 1962,

Timonium Mall Timonium is a census-designated place (CDP) in Baltimore County, Maryland, United States. As of the 2020 census, it has a population of 10,458. Prior to 2010 the area was part of the Lutherville-Timonium CDP. The Maryland State Fair is hel ...

in 1969, Westview Shopping Center (an addition to a 1958 Mall) in 1969, and the store's final branch at

Golden Ring Mall Golden means made of, or relating to gold. Golden may also refer to: Places United Kingdom *Golden, in the parish of Probus, Cornwall *Golden Cap, Dorset *Golden Square, Soho, London *Golden Valley, a valley on the River Frome in Gloucestershir ...

Rosedale, Maryland Rosedale is an unincorporated community and census-designated place in Baltimore County, Maryland, United States. The population was 19,257 at the 2010 United States census. History The etymology of Rosedale remains uncertain and lacks definit ...

, in 1974. Suburban stores were converted to ADG's

Caldor Caldor, Inc. was a discount department store chain founded in 1951 by husband and wife Carl and Dorothy Bennett. Referred to by many as "the Bloomingdale's of discounting," Caldor grew from a second story "Walk-Up-&-Save" operation in Port Ches ...

discount chain in 1983.

References

External links

*, including photo from 1998, at Maryland Historical Trust
Stewart's – Explore Baltimore Heritage

* ttp://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/I?gottscho:131:./temp/~ammem_sVcK::displayType=1:m856sd=gsc:m856sf=5a28368:@@@mdb=gottscho "Photo of Reisterstown Road store interior
Photo of Resisterstown Road store exterior

"Camellia Room" at Stewart & Co. Reisterstown Road

"Chesapeake Room" restaurant at Stewart & Co. Reisterstown Road Plaza

Article about department stores in Baltimore
Buildings and structures in Baltimore Commercial buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in Baltimore Commercial buildings completed in 1899 Downtown Baltimore Renaissance Revival architecture in Maryland Italian Renaissance Revival architecture in the United States Department stores on the National Register of Historic Places 1899 establishments in Maryland Retail companies established in 1901 Defunct department stores based in Maryland Retail companies disestablished in 1983 Defunct companies based in Baltimore {{BaltimoreCityMD-NRHP-stub