[Retired_in_Texas]

Originally Posted by BifRayRock

Sadly, today's bean counters would wring their hands over the ratio of square footage to sales, and say the future lies with [Filene's] basement sales*. Boutique franchises may try, but they rarely approximate the imaginative opulence evidenced in this thread. LA never had a monopoly on impressive man-made gilded and/or streamlined surroundings. NY, Boston, Chicago, SF, Dallas and many other communities come to mind. However, rightly or wrongly, LA seems to have devalued more of its structural bounty than so many other communities. This even includes examples of "art nouveau" (555 Flower) and plaster quirks/whimsy like Wilshire’s Brown Derby. Fortunately, many treasures survive.

"Filine's" is a name I haven't heard in many years. They like many others now only in the annals of history were rooted in an era the shopping center, freeways, and the automobile laid waste to starting in the 1950s. But the same factors also killed the likes of W.T. Grant and other variety stores at the opposite end of the spectrum. Most certainly so called "Boutique" stores which are franchises will never duplicate the imaginative opulence evidenced in this thread, mainly because the franchise founders and individual franchisee owners are so far removed from the era and probably without imagination themselves, as is much of today's consuming public. We are adrift in an unimaginative cookie cutter world in virtually all aspects of our lives and few seem to be really enjoying it!