Sears Department Store Building (New York City, New York)

 Sears, Kmart, Art Deco (architecture), historical building, 1930s construction

An old Sears, Roebuck & Co. Department Store Building department store, opened in 1932. Designed in the Late Art Deco style by Nimmons, Carr & Wright, in collaboration with Alton Craft. The design featured a tall central tower which functioned as an advertising tool as well as a functional place to store heating and cooling machinery. It also had a large auditorium called “Sears Hall” on the third floor, which held 650 people and was available to local Brooklyn groups without charge to use. It is one of, if not the last, 1930s-era Sears stores.

The exterior has seen several changes over the years. The original display windows were filled in and then painted over and many of the other windows were covered with Art Deco motif panels made of plastic. Additionally, the grand original Art Deco entryways on Beverley and Bedford are closed in favor of one central entrance at the parking lot. The building was made a New York City landmark in 2012. In 2018, it became the site of a prototype Kmart store-within-a-store, offering Kmart's merchandise mix, though it was only 10,000 square feet.

It was the final Sears store in NYC when it closed in 2021.

www.brownstoner.com/neighborhood/flatbush/sears-brookly...
s-media.nyc.gov/agencies/lpc/lp/2469.pdf
hdc.org/buildings/sears-roebuck-company-department-stor...
untappedcities.com/2016/11/14/a-landmarked-art-deco-sea...
www.jstor.org/stable/25068266
therealdeal.com/2021/09/20/sears-closing-up-shop-in-new...