My mother Anne remembers being terrified of the elevators in the City of Paris at Union Square. They were old and creaky and had glass doors behind the iron gate that allowed one to see all the wheels and cables at work. She remembers the enclosed space smelling of oil and grease and, despite the placid elevator operator who never looked concerned, Anne had nightmares about those cables suddenly snapping (they never did). For me as a child, being taken to the City of Paris during the holiday season was my most favorite thing. Of course, we always stayed clear of the elevators. With its 40 foot live Christmas Tree located in the center of the store, I always wondered how they got the dome off the roof to get the tree into the building. Imagine my disappointment when I learned that the tree was actually hauled in through a side door. But it did not deter me from enjoying the splendor of the both the building and the store. 

In May of 1850 Felix and Emile Verdier arrived in San Francisco from France with a ship filled with silk, lace, wine, champagne and cognac. The brothers intended to set up a storefront on the wharf, but managed to sell all of their supplies off the ship, returning to France for more. The following year the brothers returned and opened a small waterfront store at 152 Kearny called Ville de Paris. In 1860 they moved the store into the Occidental Hotel^[1] which at the time was one of the most opulent hotels in the City.  In 1896 Felix’s son Gaston hired Clinton Day to build a Beaux-Art style storefront at the corner of Geary and Stockton, which he renamed the City of Paris. It was one of the few buildings to survive the 1906 Earthquake and Fires^[2], though it sustained extensive fire damage. The interior was redesigned with a central rotunda capped with a stained glass dome. The store reopened in 1909 and every year a large live Christmas tree would be placed in the center of the rotunda. For many years this tree would be the City’s official Christmas Tree.

At the end of World War I^[3] Gaston’s son Paul took over the family business. He opened branch stores in Vallejo, San Mateo, San Rafael and Stonestone Mall on the other side of the City. He turned the Union Square store’s basement into the the most extensive wine department of any American department store. During Prohibition^[4] the basement was redesigned as a French village called Normandy Lane. With a side entrance on O’Farrell, there was a French book store, a cigarette and candy booth, a tea room (famous for its cinnamon buns), a Rotisserie, a Patisserie and Madame Kurtzweil, who made black paper silhouettes. Verdier Cellars reopened the day after Prohibition was repealed in 1932 within Normandy Lane. Their wine inventory was housed in six warehouses on the San Francisco waterfront. 

Many of Union Square’s high-end stores could not survive the austerity of World War II^[5], but the City of Paris was the exception. It remained a family business until the store officially closed in March 1972. The building temporarily housed Liberty House until 1974 when the building was sold. In 1978 both the City of Paris and the Fitzhugh Building, a 10 story Beaux Arts office building on the other side of Union Square^[6] were slated to be torn down. Upset citizens (the City of Paris was on the National Register of Historic Places and a California Historical Landmark) were able to delay both projects, but ultimately the Fitzhugh Building was torn down to become Saks 5th Avenue, and the City of Paris was torn down in 1981 to become Neiman Marcus. Neiman Marcus was able to appease many of its critics by keeping the original rotunda and stained glass dome (though there are no longer live Christmas Trees in the center of the store during the holidays). Neiman Marcus remains profitable in its Union Square location.

^[1] Occidental Hotel: https://thesanfranciscophoenix.com/?p=4522

^[2] 1906 Earthquake and Fires: https://thesanfranciscophoenix.com/?p=2849

^[3] World War I: https://thesanfranciscophoenix.com/?p=4079

^[4] James “Sunny Jim” Rolph and Prohibition: https://thesanfranciscophoenix.com/?p=5365

^[5] World War II: https://thesanfranciscophoenix.com/?p=4222

^[6] Union Square: story coming July 25th