One of the most celebrated department stores in Paris closes its doors on Wednesday for years, perhaps for ever, having fallen foul of health and safety regulations.
Founded in 1870, La Samaritaine, a Paris landmark, had its golden age during the 1930s at the height of the Art Deco era, but has been in decline for 30 years.
In the years before and World War II the store was famous for being the place where ”everything can be found”.
It was the second department store in the capital, founded eight years after Le Bon March, on the left bank, came into being.
Ernest Cognacq, a hawker from the west coast of France, opened a small ”novelties” shop on the banks of the Seine.
He called it La Samaritaine — the Samaritan woman — after a pump on the nearby Pont Neuf whose facade depicted Christ and the woman of Samaria at Jacob’s Well, as recounted in the Gospel according to St John.
He married Louise Jay, a saleswoman at Bon Marche, and started to build his empire. Between 1891 and 1912 he swallowed up the adjoining buildings until he had a single block of 10.
In 1930 he opened a second big store next door. Turnover rose from 300 000 francs in 1872 to 40-million in 1895 and more than a billion in 1925.
The couple had strong social consciences and contributed to the arts (the Cognacq-Jay museum), philanthropic activities (the prize that bears their name is awarded each year to a large family) and good works such as a maternity hospital, a retirement home and an orphanage.
But when the wholesale food market abandoned Les Halles nearby for Rungis on the outskirts of the capital in the 1970s business suffered. The wives of wealthy wholesalers no longer came to do their shopping with bulging purses to buy furs (the store was market leader in Paris) and diamonds.
Floor space had grown from the original 48sq metres back in 1870 to 70 000 sq metres but young people found its ranges sometimes old-fashioned and headed for the boutiques in the underground shopping complex built where the market had once stood at Les Halles.
The store fought back with offbeat publicity campaigns: it was suggested that the Queen of England bought her crown there, that a champion cyclist bought his winner’s jersey or that King Kong dropped his beloved at the foot of the building.
It did no good: the business piled up losses.
In 2001 the luxury goods group LVMH paid 230-million euros ($276-million) for the four shops, carried out major building work and abandoned some traditional sectors.
But a recent police report said the whole art deco structure needed to be urgently renovated to replace antiquated electrical circuits, malfunctioning smoke extraction systems and flammable wooden flooring.
With a complete shutdown the renovations are estimated to take between three to six years, while if work is done in stages, it could take between eight to 10 years, the Samaritaine management said.
”In the coming months, we have to begin by studying the situation. The experts have estimated that that could take 15 months,” said chief executive Philippe de Beauvoir.
Beauvoir said he wanted to quash rumours that LVMH wants to open a hotel on the site. – Sapa-AFP