The Department Store

I just finished a wonderful novel by Emile Zola entitled The Ladies Paradise. The main character is a fictional department store built in the mid-19th century in Paris. It is a marvel of engineering and a fabulous gilded monument to the emerging consumer-based economy. It's interesting to read the book and contrast our current economy in crisis with that of Paris in the 1800's. So many small businesses at that time were torn asunder by the weight of the huge department stores and we have certainly seen much of the same in our society today. I often reminisce about stores in San Francisco that I grew up with: The City of Paris, I. Magnin, and Ransohoff's, just to name a few. They have been replaced with the likes of Marvin's, Target, and Nordstrom which are all in jeopardy right now. Actually, Marvin's is already out. So, here's an old photo of The City of Paris. It could easily have been the department store that Zola used as the model for his novel.