Jane Pickens Hoving (10 August 1907 – 21 February 1992) was an American singer on Broadway , radio and television for 20 years and later an organizer in numerous philanthropic and society events. She was the musical leader of the Pickens Sisters, a trio born on a Georgia plantation that reached national stardom in the 1930s with its own radio show, concert tours, and records.
35-695: The daughters of Mr. and Mrs. P.M. Pickens, the Pickens sisters, Grace, Jane, Helen (1910–1984), and Patti (1914–1995), were born in Macon , Georgia, and grew up there and in Atlanta . Beginning when the girls were ages 4, 6 and 8, their parents taught them to harmonize. Their father, a cotton broker, played the piano and their mother sang. At first the sisters sang for friends, then at churches and schools. The family moved to Park Avenue in Manhattan in 1932, and
70-563: A 7,900 sq ft (734 m ) center court of Italian marble, with a crystal chandelier hanging above. Two additional chandeliers had once hung in the Ambassador Hotel in New York. 1,700 ft (518 m) of murals by artist Richard Neas decorated the walls of the court, and additional Neas murals adorned the shoe salon. 85 employees from White Plains transferred to Vernon Hills, in addition to 40 staff hired specifically for
105-601: A brief time in 1939–1940, the store owned radio station WHAT in Philadelphia. Floyd and Hortense Odlum would sell their investment in Bonwit Teller to Walter Hoving 's Hoving Corporation . With Bonwit Teller, Hoving would establish a strong retail presence on Fifth Avenue that would also include Tiffany & Co. According to Fintan O'Toole, writing in The New York Review of Books in
140-508: A cast that included Fanny Brice and Gypsy Rose Lee . In 1940 she played opposite Ed Wynn in Boys and Girls Together on Broadway. Brooks Atkinson 's review said she had "a most attractive voice." Pickens' other Broadway credits included Music in the Air (1951). Pickens pursued her music career alone and had wide-ranging success, from musical comedy to opera and nightclub engagements. She had
175-452: A forest of woods: satinwood, butternut, walnut, cherry, rosewood, bubinga, maple, ebony, red mahogany and Persian oak." But after Bonwit Teller took over the store in April 1930, the architect Ely Jacques Kahn stripped the interior of its decorations. Two more floors were added to the main building in 1938 and a twelve-story addition was made to the 56th Street frontage in 1939. Over time,
210-701: A full-time branch in White Plains. Another notable opening was the Boston store in 1947 in the Back Bay neighborhood. By the 1960s, there were stores operating in New York, Manhasset , White Plains , Boston , Chicago , Philadelphia , and Cleveland , as well as small resort shops in Miami and Palm Beach . During the 1960s, the company built a store in Short Hills and moved its White Plains store next to
245-523: A large Lord & Taylor in Scarsdale . In the mid-1980s branches were located in Oak Brook, Illinois; Troy, Michigan; Palm Desert, California; Beverly Hills, Bal Harbour, Kansas City, Buffalo, and Columbia, South Carolina. From the mid-1970s to late-1980s, Bonwit competed head-on with peer Saks Fifth Avenue , retaining a role on the development of fashion and design, most notably helping to launch
280-576: A much more novel quality than the harder jazz-styled Boswell Sisters' records. Also, as 1932 Victor records had two- and three-part harmonizers, the Three X Sisters , with experimental sweet/swingy tunes, were among the most noted harmonizers of their day. The Pickens group earned $ 1 million in five years but dissolved when two sisters left to get married and a fourth, Grace, who was the group's manager, also departed. Grace married U.S. District Attorney John T. Cahill . Patti married radio actor Bob Simmons. Of
315-547: A test recording for Victor made such an impression with radio executives that they hired the sisters unseen. Promoted as "Three Little Maids From Dixie", they appeared in Thumbs Up on Broadway and in the movie Sitting Pretty . Signed to Victor as Victor's answer to the popular Brunswick recording artists the Boswell Sisters , they recorded 25 sides for Victor from early 1932 until late 1934. Their records had
350-492: Is rare and would have made definite sense in our collection." In addition to the relief panels, the huge Art Deco nickel grillwork over the entrance to the store, which had also been promised to the museum, disappeared. Again masquerading as his own spokesman "John Barron", Trump said, "We don't know what happened to it." In the late 1880s, Paul Bonwit opened a small millinery shop at Sixth Avenue and 18th Street in Manhattan 's Ladies' Mile shopping district. In 1895, which
385-556: The American Melody Hour on CBS radio and the Jane Pickens Show on NBC radio , as well as a program on ABC television . In 1954, Pickens appeared in a 15-minute ABC television musical series, The Jane Pickens Show , which was replaced in the spring by The Martha Wright Show . She frequently performed benefits for charitable causes, including events for orphans, hospitals, youths, veterans and
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#1732786891938420-567: The stock market crash of 1929 , was investing in firms in financial distress and in 1934 Odlum's Atlas Corporation acquired Bonwit Teller. Odlum's wife, Hortense , who had already been serving as a consultant, was named president of Bonwit Teller in 1938, making her the first female president of a major department store in the United States. The Odlums also retained a connection to the firm's founding family, naming Paul Bonwit's son Walter Bonwit as vice president and general manager. For
455-532: The 15-foot tall limestone relief panels, depicting nearly nude women dancing, at the top of the Fifth Avenue facade, became a "Bonwit Teller signature". Donald Trump , who purchased the building thanks to Genesco's CEO John L. Hanigan , wanted to begin demolition in 1980. Trump "promised the limestone reliefs" to the Metropolitan Museum of Art . When they were "jackhammered" "to bits" the act
490-599: The Chain Gang . Pickens was in the musical Thumbs Up! staged from December 1934 into 1935. Pickens appeared on the cover of the September 1936 issue of Popular Songs Magazine . She married Robert Simmons of the Revelers in 1937. She retired from show business in the 1950s to raise her family. She returned to the stage in the 1970s. Pickens died in 1995. Bonwit Teller Bonwit Teller & Co.
525-742: The career of Calvin Klein . In 1964 Bonwit Teller had branch store in a two-and-a-half-story building in downtown White Plains, where it had operated since April 1941, on the current site of the Westchester One tower. Bonwit had a 20-year lease ending in 1976, but local developer Salvatore Pepe wanted Bonwits to move to the Vernon Hills Shopping Center , which he had developed five miles away in Eastchester near Scarsdale . Pepe went to landlord Archie Davidow and bought
560-414: The company often referred to as the year it was founded, Bonwit opened another store on Sixth Avenue just four blocks uptown. When Bonwit's original business failed, Bonwit bought out his partner and opened a new store with Edmund D. Teller in 1898 on 23d Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. The firm was incorporated in 1907 as Bonwit Teller & Company and in 1911 relocated yet again, this time to
595-473: The company was largely known as a shoe retailer. Bonwit Teller, which had developed a cutting-edge reputation promoting a young Christian Dior and other prominent American designers, gained momentum in its fashion and sales during the mid-1960s following the acquisition by Genesco. Bonwit Teller had started to expand as early as 1935 when it opened a "season branch" in Palm Beach, then in 1941 it opened
630-634: The company's store base from five to sixteen during the period. In 1989, Bonwit was put on the auction block after the LJ Hooker filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy . Under the bankruptcy two stores in Cincinnati & Columbia continued to be operated by Hooker Corp under a license whilst five stores ( Boston , Buffalo , Manhasset and Short Hills ) and the Bonwit Teller name were purchased by The Pyramid Company . The flagship store in Manhattan
665-514: The corner of Fifth Avenue and Thirty-eighth Street. They announced that this new location would provide consumers with: an uncommon display of wearing apparel from foreign and domestic sources . . . which will appeal to those who desire the unusual and exclusive at moderate prices. In 1930, with the retail trade in New York City moving uptown, the store moved again, this time to a new address on Fifth Avenue. Bonwit took up residence in
700-579: The disabled. When her career tapered off in the late 1950s, she turned to running hundreds of fund-raising affairs. Among her favorite causes were the Salvation Army and research into heart disease and cerebral palsy , a condition that afflicted her daughter. On June 6, 1928, at the age of 20, Pickens married Russell A. Clark (or Clarke). The marriage ended in divorce. She became a noted figure at balls and other society events in New York City, Long Island and Newport. After her career peaked she
735-422: The former Stewart & Co. building at Fifty-sixth Street, which would remain the company's flagship store for nearly fifty years. The building had been designed by the architectural firm Warren and Wetmore in 1929 and redesigned the next year by Ely Jacques Kahn for Bonwit. The company, in need of capital, partnered with noted financier Floyd Odlum . Odlum, who had cashed in his stock holdings just prior to
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#1732786891938770-521: The last store open was the Carousel Center location. In 2005, River West Brands, a Chicago -based brand revitalization company, announced it had formed Avenue Brands LLC to bring back Bonwit Teller. In June 2008, it was announced that Bonwit Teller would be opening with eventually as many as twenty locations, beginning with New York and Los Angeles. Perhaps due to the subsequent recession, this venture never materialized. In March 2020, it
805-468: The mid-20th century, the artists Jasper Johns , Robert Rauschenberg , and Andy Warhol all worked at Bonwit Teller as window dressers (creating window displays). The company would undergo another ownership change just ten years later with the acquisition of Bonwit by Genesco in 1956. At the time, Genesco was a large conglomerate operating 64 apparel and retail companies. While Genesco's portfolio included other upscale brands, including Henri Bendel ,
840-470: The new store. In 1979, Allied Stores Corporation acquired the company. Its storied flagship Fifth Avenue store was planned to be rebuilt there opposite the new Trump Tower . Bonwit Teller reopened its store in April 1981 now on 57th Street as the new flagship would be the centerstone to Trump Tower's indoor mall. In 1987, Allied Stores Corporation sold Bonwit Teller for $ 101 million to Hooker Corporation , an Australian business. Hooker would expand
875-547: The property, including the remainder of the lease, thus permitting Bonwits to move; it ceased operations at White Plains at the close of business on April 13, 1967. Five days later, on April 18, 1967, the new 43,000 sq ft (3,995 m ) Bonwit Teller Scarsdale store opened. Guests included actress Arlene Francis (member of the company's board of directors), Princess Marcella Borghese and Mildred Custin, president of Bonwit Teller. Designed by Copeland, Novak & Israel, it consisted of 36 fashion departments, and featured
910-436: The severity of the building itself. The entrance was "like a spilled casket of gems: platinum, bronze, hammered aluminum, orange and yellow faience, and tinted glass backlighted at night". The American Architect magazine described it in 1929 as "a sparkling jewel in keeping with the character of the store." Originally, the "interior of Stewart & Company was just as opulent as the entrance: murals, decorative painting, and
945-790: The sisters Jane Pickens, who arranged the group's numbers, was the most serious about music. She studied at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia and the Fontainebleau in France and won fellowships at the Juilliard School where she studied voice with Anna Eugénie Schoen-René . She studied for two years with Marcella Sembrich , a Polish coloratura soprano. She sang in the Ziegfeld Follies of 1936 in
980-584: The trade for the quality of its merchandise as well as the above-average salaries paid to both buyers and executives. The partnership was incorporated in 1907 and the store moved to the corner of Fifth Avenue and 38th Street . Throughout much of the 20th century, Bonwit was one of a group of upscale department stores on Fifth Avenue that catered to the "carriage trade". Among its most notable peers were Lord & Taylor , and Saks Fifth Avenue . The Bonwit Teller's flagship uptown building at Fifth Avenue and 56th Street, originally known as Stewart & Company,
1015-516: Was 84 years old when she died of heart failure in Newport , Rhode Island , on February 21, 1992. She also had a home on Park Avenue in Manhattan. She was survived by her daughter, Marcella Clark McCormack of Newport and Manhattan, and a sister, Patti Shreve of Bethlehem , Pennsylvania . The Jane Pickens Theater, a one-screen arthouse cinema that is the only remaining movie theater in Newport,
1050-479: Was a women's clothing store in the "new luxury retailing district", designed by Whitney Warren and Charles Wetmore , and opened on October 16, 1929, with Eleanor Roosevelt in attendance. It was described by The New York Times as a 12-story emporium of "severe, almost unornamented limestone climbing to a ziggurat of setbacks"—as an "antithesis" of the nearby "conventional 1928 Bergdorf Goodman Building . The "stupendously luxurious" entrance sharply contrasted
1085-454: Was an American luxury department store in New York City, founded by Paul Bonwit in 1895 at Sixth Avenue and 18th Street, and later a chain of department stores . In 1897, Edmund D. Teller was admitted to the partnership and the store moved to 23rd Street , east of Sixth Avenue. Bonwit specialized in high-end women's apparel at a time when many of its competitors were diversifying their product lines, and Bonwit Teller became noted within
Jane Pickens - Misplaced Pages Continue
1120-680: Was closed as part of the deal and left the space vacant until a Galeries Lafayette opened in the building in 1991 which now had a new interior and facade but due to poor sales the store closed in 1994. After The Pyramid Company purchased Bonwit Teller from Hooker in 1990 they opened a store at the Carousel Center complex in Syracuse, New York . During the mid-1990s, a Manhattan branch was shopped around. The venerable institution filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy in March 2000 after heightened debt,
1155-499: Was condemned. Claiming to be a fictional spokesman named " John Barron ", Trump said that his company had obtained three independent appraisals of the sculptures, which he claimed had found them to be "without artistic merit." An official at the Metropolitan Museum of Art disputed the statement, stating: "Can you imagine the museum accepting them if they were not of artistic merit? Architectural sculpture of this quality
1190-711: Was married twice to prominent businessmen. First was William C. Langley , a Wall Street broker. After he died, she married Walter Hoving , who had owned Tiffany & Company and Bonwit Teller . In 1972 she ran as the Republican -Conservative challenger to United States Representative Edward I. Koch in the Silk Stocking district on the East Side of Manhattan . Pickens also painted. Flowers were her favorite subject, roses in particular. She exhibited in galleries and sold dozens of paintings for charity. She
1225-477: Was renamed after her in 1974. Pickens and her sister Patti performed at the dedication ceremony. Patti Pickens Patti Pickens (1917 – November 16, 1995) was an American performer. Pickens was born in Macon, Georgia . With her sisters Jane Pickens and Helen Pickens, she performed as part of the Pickens Sisters in the 1930s. They also appeared in the short comedy film 20,000 Cheers for
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