Bamberger’s – Newark, NJ

Posted on December 19, 2007 | 2 Comments

Bamberger's - Newark, NJ

Bamberger's - Newark, NJ

Bamberger's - Newark, NJ
© Frank H. Jump

Driving through Newark’s “Department Store Graveyard,” I found Bamberger’s, a defunct Newark based department store with locations formerly in New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware & Maryland.

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2 responses to “Bamberger’s – Newark, NJ”

  1. Glenn Waters | May 20, 2009 at 5:35 pm |

    Once a beautiful Department Store!
    The historic Bamberger’s flagship store located at 131 Market Street in downtown Newark once ranked among the nation’s largest. The massive building covered an entire city block, bounded by Market, Washington, Bank and Halsey Streets. The phone exchange 565 was for the exclusive use of Bamberger’s, and it had direct dial numbers for most of New Jersey’s suburbs for phone ordering services known as “tele-service”. The building’s loading dock was located well below ground on the fourth basement level, thus avoiding delivery trucks blocking the busy city streets. Two massive elevators would carry fully loaded 18-wheelers from Washington Street down to the loading docks.
    Selling space, and escalator service, ran from the second basement level to the ninth floor, and the tenth floor contained a beautiful wood-paneled dining room, and several private banquet rooms. The eighth floor featured an extensive toy, game, and sporting goods departments featuring unique imported merchandise from overseas buying trips. Services offered included dry cleaning, pharmacist, fur storage, travel services, ticket services, watch and jewelry repair, personal shopping services, and a butcher department. Two elevator banks and two escalator banks served the store.

    • Rick Schwarz | May 6, 2010 at 9:00 pm |

      In response to Glenn Waters comment, the 565 telephone exchange was not exclusive to Bamberger’s, New Jersey Bell (Now Verizon New Jersey) assigned that exchange to other big businesses headquarters in Newark, the now defunct First National Bank (Later First Fidelity, then First Union) for many years used 565-xxxx as a PBX for their Broad St. HQ and for their vast branches throughout the state which was interesting because if you lived in Trenton and wanted to call the Trenton branch you would have to dial (201) 565-xxxx which ended up being a long distance call.