The Hahne & Co. building ... was one of the most elegant department stores in America.
NEWARK -- This undated photo shows Hahne and Co. department store on Broad Street in Newark.
Writing in a July 2015 article in the Bergen Record, Joan Verdon notes that "when it opened in 1901, the Hahne & Co. building ... was one of the most elegant department stores in America. For more than 80 years, it was a symbol of the golden age of department stores, and it was among the last surviving downtown department stores in New Jersey, after most stores moved to the suburbs."
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The flagship store closed in 1986 and the building sat vacant for 29 years, but Verdon points to coming revitalization.
"The 400,000-square-foot building is being converted into a mixed-use complex," she wrote, "that will include apartments, an arts and cultural center for Rutgers University, a Whole Foods store and other retailers on the ground level."
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