I remember shopping in Gimbels, long ago. The frequent small steps from one room to another puzzled me at first, but later I realized the Gimbel's had expanded from its original building, eventually taking over all of the buildings down the length of the block. The floor levels in the various building didn't align with each other so when they cut through the walls to connect the buildings that had to add the occasional step or two.

This leviathan eventually grew to almost 2 million square feet, but of course it's more importantly known as the home of America's first Thanksgving Day Parade; so Macy*s may not tell Gimbel's, but it wasn't afraid to copy. (Eaton's in Toronto had developed the concept a few years previously.) It's been memorialized on video.

I admire the work and the grit of sign painters back then. Looking at the signs on the side of that tall building and thinking of what it took to paint them tells me it wasn't a job for sissies.

I'm not sure when the memorably ugly sign was installed above this corner entrance; I remember it from the 1960s. These buildings were demolished in 1979, two years after store operations moved into the Gallery Mall across Market Street, where they lasted ten more years until Gimbel's closed down.