San Francisco, CA Photo - Stained Glass in Neiman Marcus Store, San Francisco, California

This is stain glass that is now in Neiman Marcus on Union Square, but once was in The City of Paris store. The City of Paris remained under the ownership and management of the Verdier family until it closed in March 1972. The store was not bankrupt, but it was losing money. The store building was purchased by Liberty House (Hawaii) and reopened as Liberty House at the City of Paris. Liberty House built a new store at Stockton and OÃâ ‚ ¬Ã¢ „Farrell streets closing the City of Paris building in 1974 and selling the site to Neiman Marcus. Neiman Marcus' announcement that it planned to demolish the old building to build a flagship department store of its own on the site set off a protracted preservation campaign. Despite being listed on the National Register of Historical Places, as a California Historical Landmark, 66,000 gathered signatures of citizens who wanted the building preserved, and various legal challenges the building was demolished in 1981. The new building, designed by postmodernist architect Phillip Johnson, was often disparaged by architecture critics, but over time has become popular with tourists and locals. The architectural centerpiece of the building is the original rotunda and stained glass skylight under a glass dome, preserved and moved to the corner of the building that faces Union Square. The old atrium is sheathed inside a modern glass wall, encircled on the top floor by a restaurant.

Credit line: The Jon B. Lovelace Collection of California Photographs in Carol M. Highsmith's America Project, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.