5. The Bonwit Teller Building
Where Trump Tower now stands was the former Bonwit Teller flagship store
Tied with the Madison Square Gardens was the Bonwit Teller Building, originally a 1929 department store of Stewart & Company that was demolished in 1980 and replaced by Trump Tower. One reader writes, “I miss the Art Deco bas reliefs that graced the Bonwit Teller building on 5th.” Designed by Warren and Wetmore (of Grand Central), the reliefs were one of the many things that were celebrated in the design of the building. The store was so celebrated that Eleanor Roosevelt attended the opening.
The New York Times described the limestone building as having an “entranceway that was a stupendously luxurious mix of limestone, bronze, platinum and hammered aluminum” and that protest regarding saving the building “came both too late and too early. It became a Bonwit Teller store in 1930 and lasted until 1979.
