The ability to shop from our homes and have almost anything delivered to our doorstep is one of the great conveniences of our day. Louis Bamberger, the famed department store owner, foresaw this shift in the buying habits of American consumers a century ago.
Most people are aware of the former department store buildings on Market Street that once belonged to Bamberger’s retail empire. But there is another, lesser-known landmark on Elizabeth Avenue that stands as a monument to his pioneering home-delivery service.
In the 1920s, Louis Bamberger knew he needed to expand his deliveries. The city’s wealthy patrons were beginning to flee to the fashionable suburbs. Delivery service was a way to retain their patronage despite the mass migration to places like the Oranges.
“Newark’s elite were leaving the city — the amount of “white flight” within the city core occurred faster and earlier than in other urban centers,” historian Michael Lisicky, authored the book Bamberger’s: New Jersey’s Greatest Store, told our publication. “It was imperative that Bamberger invest in its delivery service.”
As the service grew, so did the fleet of the trucks — with more than 100 loading packages on cramped downtown streets. Deliveries were initially operated out of Bamberger’s buildings on Market Street — a tunnel system under Halsey Street connected both. However, the operations were becoming increasingly complicated.
In 1924, Bamberger bought a plot of land at 254 Elizabeth Avenue where the city’s almshouse used to be located. There he envisioned an entire warehouse dedicated only to deliveries. Its location near the West Newark Branch of the Pennsylvania Railroad would also save on time.
On the day the warehouse opened in 1925, Bamberger was processing over a half a million packages for shipment every month, Lisicky said. The building was notable for its sheer size – 180,000 square feet. One newspaper called it the world’s largest remote delivery building. It was the Amazon warehouse of its day.
The building, designed by Abbott, Merkt, and Co, could accommodate 50 loading trucks at one time. The interior of the building was technologically advanced with a system of conveyor belts whisking packages off to the department store’s famous black delivery trucks and finally to the doorsteps of customers.
This was a pivotal decade for Bamberger. The Bamberger Ideal Home opened a year before in 1924 and served as a showroom for all of the department store’s home appliances to appeal to the suburban homeowner. Full-page advertisements of the Ideal Home, located at 729 Elizabeth Avenue, appeared in newspapers hawking seasonal accoutrements and cutting-edge technology like in-home garbage incinerators.
Bamberger could sense the way the wind was blowing and was willing to adjust his business model to survive. But these innovations were met by changes happening within Bamberger himself. Now in his 70s, his focus was shifting from his business to philanthropy. In 1926, the building he donated to the Newark Museum of Art finally opened to the public and visitors can still see a bronze plaque with Bamberger’s portrait in the lobby. In 1930, he and his sister Caroline Fuld helped found Princeton’s Institute for Advanced Study.
“In the summer of 1929, Louis Bamberger, growing older and devoting more time to philanthropic causes, sold his business to R.H. Macy,” Lisicky said. “The timing couldn’t have been better for Bamberger — within months of the sale, the stock market crashed.”
The Elizabeth Avenue warehouse, under Macy’s control, remained open until 1948, when delivery operations were moved to a Bloomfield warehouse. That building on Franklin Street has since been demolished.
But 100 years later, the warehouse in Newark still exists, though Bamberger’s name has long been stripped from the building and much of its Art Deco beauty has faded. The facade still features interesting terracotta details that show craftsmanship that is rare in modern-day buildings, especially industrial ones. The warehouse has no landmark status and most drivers pass by the building without knowing its importance to the city and how it shaped American culture.
