I'll Meet You at the Eagle?

"Meet Me at the Eagle!"

On January 9, 2025, Macy’s announced that because of declining sales, the downtown Philadelphia store would be closing in March 2025. Many Philadelphians of a certain age will remember that store as Wanamaker’s.

John Wanamaker was born in the Grays Ferry neighborhood of South Philadelphia in 1838 to a bricklayer father and a mother who was a daughter of a farmer and innkeeper.

When he was 22, in 1861, Wanamaker and his brother-in-law Nathan Brown opened a small men’s clothing store called “Oak Hall” at the southeast corner of Sixth and Market Streets.

In 1874, Wanamaker bought the abandoned Pennsylvania Railroad depot on the corner of Thirteenth and Market Streets (see right).

By the next year he began changing the freight depot into a two-acre store. The new building's Moorish façade was designed to appeal to visitors attending the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition of 1876, taking place in nearby Fairmount Park. Wanamaker was a member of the Finance Committee for the fair and had helped raise the first million dollars to fund it.

On May 6, 1876, four days before the opening of the Centennial, Wanamaker opened the “Grand Depot” men’s store. He distributed more than a million promotional booklets.

In 1877, Wanamaker opened “The New Kind of Store,” selling a wide variety of products (see below), at a time when most stores sold only one kind of merchandise. He helped introduce Americans to the new, French idea of the “department” store, in which goods were displayed in a clearly organized system and with clearly marked prices.

Wanamaker’s was the first department store in Philadelphia, and one of the first in the United States.

His sustained success encouraged Wanamaker to build an all-new store in Philadelphia. He hired Daniel H. Burnham, the renowned Chicago architect who was Director of Works for the World’s Columbian Exhibition in Chicago in 1893.

The Wanamaker Building was built on the original site of the Grand Depot to house the flagship Wanamaker Department Store and its corporate offices. This 12-story, massive, granite building was completed in 1911. The property occupies an entire city block bounded by Market Street, Chestnut Street, Thirteenth Street, and Juniper Street.

A seven-story, marble-clad central atrium, known as the "Grand Court," is the building's most notable feature. The Grand Court features the Wanamaker Eagle and the Wanamaker Grand Court Organ, two beloved treasures that Wanamaker encountered at the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair. 

It took 13 freight cars to ship the entire organ from St. Louis. The 2,500-pound bronze Eagle, designed by Berlin sculptor August Gaul, had been the centerpiece of the German Exhibit of Arts and Crafts Court of Honour. It soon became the symbol of Wanamaker’s and a favorite meeting place for shoppers. To this day, Philadelphians often make plans to gather by saying "Meet me at the Eagle" at the Wanamaker's building.

Before his death in 1922, John Wanamaker turned over his holdings of the Philadelphia and New York Wanamaker’s stores to his son Rodman. After Rodman’s death in 1928, control of the stores passed to a board of trustees charged with serving the interests of the surviving Rodman Wanamaker family.

During the many years that followed, Wanamaker’s expanded to include 16 stores, primarily located in the mid-Atlantic region, including suburban branches in areas like Wilmington, Delaware; Wynnewood, Pennsylvania; Jenkintown, Pennsylvania; and malls like King of Prussia and Christiana.

In 1986, A. Alfred Taubman bought the 16 Wanamaker’s stores to add to his previous purchase of Woodward & Lothrop. Wanamaker's transitioned to Hecht’s in 1995, one of the May Company brands. After 133 consecutive years, the Wanamaker's name was removed from all stores and replaced with Hecht’s. The Philadelphia store passed through several other changes in ownership until it became a Macy’s in 2006.

What will happen to happen to the Wanamaker building going forward is unclear. The Wanamaker Building Leasing website is still advertising office space.

Some of the historic elements of the building may be protected. The National Park Service named the building a National Historical Landmark in 1978. In 1991, local enthusiasts founded the Friends of the Wanamaker Organ nonprofit to raise money for an extensive restoration of the organ and its continued upkeep as a public treasure. In the Grand Court, the organ and the Eagle are among the very few interiors protected by virtue of being included on the Philadelphia Historic Register.

I hope that the Grand Court of the Wanamaker Building will still be open to the public in some way, and we can continue say, “Meet me at the Eagle.”

Please enjoy a selection of Wanamakers catalogs from the past from our collections.

IMAGE CREDITS

John Wanamaker (Firm) Golden book of the Wanamaker stores / Jubilee year, 1861-1911. [Philadelphia, 1911-13]

John Wanamaker (Firm) Philadelphia a guide : made for the convenience of people interested in the city's notable history and present achievement. Philadelphia : Published by John Wanamaker, c1917.

John Wanamaker (Firm) The Wanamaker store directory.  [Philadelphia,1887]