Strawbridge and Clothier Store, Jenkintown

The Strawbridge and Clothier Store is a historic department store building located at Jenkintown, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. It was built by Strawbridge & Clothier in 1930-1931 and renovated and expanded in 1954. It closed in 1988 when it relocated to the Willow Grove Park Mall. It is now an office building, multi-tenant.

Strawbridge and Clothier Store, Jenkintown
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
The store in 2012
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Location	680 Old York Rd. N of Rydal Rd. Jenkintown, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Coordinates	40°6′6″N 75°7′32″W
Area	7.9 acres (3.2 ha)
Built	1930-1931, 1954
Architect	Dreher & Churchman; Herbert B. Beidler
Architectural style	Art Deco
NRHP reference No.	88003047[1]
Added to NRHP	December 22, 1988

History

The original section is a four-story, steel frame structure faced in limestone and on a granite base in the Art Deco style. It has a flat slag roof with parapet. The building features piers that extend above the roof parapet, two-story projecting entrance pavilions, a one-story flat roofed extension with elegant display windows, and two five-story towers. The addition is a three-story structure with a parking garage. It was built as the second suburban branch of Strawbridge and Clothier.^[2] This Strawbridge & Clothier store closed in 1988 when it relocated to the Willow Grove Park Mall.^[3] In the late 1990s, the building served as the headquarters of fast-growing online music retailer CDNow. It currently houses an Outback Steakhouse.

The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1988.^[1]

The building was built on the site of Wyndhurst, banker John Milton Colton's estate containing a Horace Trumbauer-designed Tudor-style residence built 1899-1900.^[4] The main residence was razed in 1930 to build the Jenkintown store, but one of the outbuildings in similar Tudor style remains at 2 Rydal Rd.^[5]

References

Notes

1. "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. July 9, 2010.
2. "National Historic Landmarks & National Register of Historic Places in Pennsylvania" (Searchable database). CRGIS: Cultural Resources Geographic Information System. Note: This includes Patrick W. O'Bannon and Diane E. Newbury (October 1988). "National Register of Historic Places Inventory Nomination Form: Strawbridge and Clothier Store" (PDF). Retrieved May 5, 2012.
3. Giles, David M. (October 23, 1988). "Strawbridge: The Malling Of A Tradition". The Philadelphia Inquirer. Archived from the original on December 21, 2015. Retrieved October 18, 2010.
4. Arrigale, Lawrence M.; Keels, Thomas H. (2012). Philadelphia's Golden Age of Retail. Arcadia Publishing. p. 106.
5. Old York Road Historical Society (2000). Abington, Jenkintown, and Rockledge. Arcadia Publishing. p. 40.

External links

• Media related to Strawbridge & Clothier Store, Jenkintown at Wikimedia Commons
• Strawbridge & Clothier company records at Hagley Museum and Library