Gimbels

Which is very fun in turn because Gertrude Stein was inspired to write the Teresa Act in part by seeing a department store window in France where she saw these pictures of a girl becoming a nun.

Gimbels used lines from the libretto to name their new line of tablecloths that season.

It feels very Hamilton.

A whole ass moment.

Uh, they didn't sell very many of them, uh, but it was a popular success, and it was a critical success.

And after the show closed at the Gallery Saint-Etienne, Gimbels, which was then, like, one of the major department stores in New York, invited her to contribute to a Thanksgiving festival at the store.

They invited her to come down to New York and to address the press and the public, and that was the moment, sort of literally and figuratively, when Grandma Moses became Grandma Moses, because a journalist discovered the name, uh, put it in the press, and, you know, as they say, the rest is history.

Except it didn't happen immediately.

It stuck around until the late 1950s.

There was Gimble's at 6th and Smithfield, which actually started out as Kauffman and Baer, started by a few members of the Kauffman's family.

There was a Woolworth's that's also across the street.

It's at 6th and Smithfield across from Gimble's.

There was a Saks Fifth Avenue at Oliver and Smithfield that closed, oh gosh, I want to say around 10 years ago or a little bit better than a decade ago now.

There was a Lord and Taylor and the old Mellon Bank building at 5th and Smithfield that was around for four years or so.

And yeah, so they needed to be able to sort of ease people into that transition.

Gimbel's is another department store which comes to New York and positions itself literally between Penn Station and Macy's.

So then Gimbel's and Macy's then get into this competition because of their location.

And of course, most people will know that very famously plays out in the famous movie Miracle on 34th Street.

where the Santa Claus was a gimbal Santa Claus, not a Macy's Santa Claus, which I always loved.

You know, department stores really made up so much of our popular culture in the mid to late 20th century.

And that's changing now because we don't shop that way.

And Gimbel's had that famous sky bridge, which is still there.

You know, it's just, I love it.

Because there's a lot of people who don't know anymore what we're talking about, like Gimbels and Macy's.

I know.

I miss that rivalry.

It's from Warner Brothers, and it's at the Rockefeller Center Venue that is donated to immersive storytelling.

And it basically transforms into a storybook journey at the North Pole in honor of Jon Favreau's 2003 Elf, with Will Ferrell as Buddy the Elf, who was raised by elves, makes it to New York City looking for Walter for his dad, and he gets a job at Gimbels.

It's like 4D then, in a way? Like, you smell pancakes, or syrup, or-

I think you go into Gimbels

Oh, that would make me so hungry

... or no, you just w- you don't watch the movie.

And in a Tiffany box, the whole thing was a Tiffany box, beautifully done.

You go to Macy's or Gimbel's and you buy something not comparable for a dollar.

$1.25.

But the majority would not be seen dating Tiffany.

... stunts, I mean, all to get people in the door during a time when consumerism was down, the economy was down.

One thing I found really funny is that Gimbels, the department store in New York City-

Mm-hmm, featured in Elf, right?

Yes.

They try out this marketing tactic called Gimbels Tells The Whole Truth-

[laughs]

...

in which they deliberately advertise the flaws in their products so that consumers will, I mean, theoretically, trust them more.

Okay, let's not tell them.

After all, does Macy's tell Gimbels?

Now, let's get on with this thing, huh? There we were, stumbling through the desert sands.

The sun was beating down on us.