If you searched this question expecting some kind of recent news story, here’s the short answer: Gimbels is not going out of business today. It already did — about four decades ago.
The confusion is completely understandable. If you grew up watching Miracle on 34th Street, the name Gimbels probably still feels alive and familiar. But the actual chain closed its doors in the mid-to-late 1980s and never came back.
This article covers everything you need to know — when Gimbels closed, what the chain actually was, why it failed, and why people are still searching for it today.
Gimbels Is Not Going Out of Business — It Already Did
Let’s get this out of the way first. Gimbels is not a currently operating retailer. There are no stores, no website, no corporate headquarters. The brand is gone.
The end came in stages rather than one clean moment. In 1986, the company announced it would liquidate, and major closures began right away. The famous Herald Square store in Manhattan — arguably the most well-known Gimbels location — closed before the end of 1986. By 1987, the remaining stores had been sold off or shut down, and the brand was effectively dissolved.
The very last Gimbels store was located in West Mifflin, near Pittsburgh. It lost its lease and closed in early 1988. So depending on which source you look at, the closure period runs from roughly 1986 to 1988, with 1987 being the most commonly cited year for when the chain formally ceased to exist as a retail business.
No matter how you slice the timeline, the takeaway is the same: Gimbels has been gone for a long time.
What Gimbels Was and Why It Mattered
Gimbels wasn’t just some regional chain that faded quietly. At its peak, it was one of the biggest department store operations in the entire country.
It started around 1840 to 1842, when Adam Gimbel opened a small general store in Vincennes, Indiana. From that humble beginning, the business grew steadily. By 1887, there was a major store in Milwaukee. Then came Philadelphia and eventually New York City.
By 1965, Gimbels was running around 53 stores — making it one of the largest department store chains in the United States at the time. The flagship location at Herald Square in Manhattan became a cultural landmark, largely because of its famous rivalry with Macy’s, which sat just blocks away.
That rivalry got immortalized in the 1947 film Miracle on 34th Street, where a Macy’s Santa Claus sends customers to Gimbels when Macy’s doesn’t carry what they need. It’s a small movie moment, but it burned both names into the public memory for generations.
Gimbels was also big enough to own radio stations — including WIP in Philadelphia, WGBS in New York, and WCAE in Pittsburgh. That’s not something you’d expect from a department store, but it shows just how much reach the company had at its height.
The Ownership Shift That Changed Everything
Understanding why Gimbels closed requires a quick look at who was actually running it by the 1980s.
The chain had been acquired by Brown & Williamson, the tobacco company. Through a retail holding group called BATUS, Brown & Williamson managed several retail brands, and Gimbels was one of them.
By the mid-1980s, BATUS saw Gimbels as a low-priority, underperforming piece of a larger portfolio. The chain wasn’t generating the kind of returns that made it worth investing in, and corporate leadership had little appetite for a major turnaround effort.
So instead of pouring money into modernizing the stores or repositioning the brand, BATUS made a clean exit. They announced plans to sell off the 35 remaining locations and walk away entirely. Some stores were sold to other retailers. Others simply closed. The Gimbels name was retired.
This is actually a pretty common pattern in retail history. A well-known brand gets absorbed into a large conglomerate. The conglomerate decides the brand isn’t pulling its weight. Rather than fight for a turnaround, they cut their losses. The brand disappears — not because customers stopped caring overnight, but because the people in the boardroom decided it wasn’t worth saving.
Why Gimbels Struggled in the First Place
Of course, BATUS didn’t just pull the plug on a healthy business. Gimbels had been struggling for years before the final decision came down.
Sales had been declining through the 1970s and into the 1980s. The broader retail landscape was shifting in ways that hurt traditional department stores like Gimbels. Shoppers were moving to suburban malls, discount chains, and specialty stores. The old model — a big urban department store carrying a little of everything — was starting to feel outdated.
Competitors like Macy’s were better positioned to adapt. They had stronger brand identities and more resources to invest in the customer experience. Gimbels, with its fragmented regional operations, had a harder time keeping up. It was difficult to market the brand consistently or modernize stores quickly across multiple cities.
There was no single villain in this story. It wasn’t one bad decision or one bad year. It was a slow erosion — competition from stronger rivals, shifts in how people preferred to shop, and a corporate parent that didn’t see a path worth pursuing.
Put all of that together, and the 1986 liquidation starts to make sense. By the time BATUS announced the closures, Gimbels was already running uphill.
What Happened to the Individual Stores
When a chain the size of Gimbels closes, the stores don’t just disappear. Real estate has to go somewhere.
In Philadelphia, most of the Gimbels locations were purchased by Allied Department Stores and rebranded as Stern’s. Those stores continued for a while, though they eventually closed too. The center-city Philadelphia location held on until 1993.
In Milwaukee, the downtown Gimbels stores were picked up by Marshall Field’s, which operated them under its own name for several years before that chain went through its own changes.
The original Vincennes, Indiana location — the one that started it all — had already closed in 1981, a few years before the wider shutdown.
And the Herald Square store in New York? That building was eventually redeveloped into Manhattan Mall, which still stands today. It’s a good example of how real estate sometimes outlives the brand that built it. The location was always valuable — the name attached to it just changed.
Why People Still Search for Gimbels Today
Miracle on 34th Street is the biggest reason. Every time someone watches that film — whether they’re a first-time viewer or revisiting a holiday tradition — they hear the Gimbels name dropped like it’s common knowledge. It sounds like a real, current place. And for plenty of viewers, that’s enough to spark a quick search.
There’s also a growing wave of nostalgia around classic American retail. Websites, history blogs, and local historians have spent years documenting the rise and fall of department store chains. Gimbels comes up often in those conversations as an example of a brand that once meant something significant and then quietly vanished.
That combination — pop culture visibility and genuine historical significance — keeps the name circulating online even though the stores have been gone for nearly 40 years.
If you’re interested in more business history and retail stories like this one, Upward Business Mag covers topics like these in a straightforward, readable way.
The Bigger Picture
Gimbels isn’t just a department store that closed. It’s a pretty clear example of how even large, well-known brands can fade when the business environment shifts and the people in charge decide not to fight for them.
The chain went from a small Indiana general store to one of the biggest retail names in America — and then, over a handful of years in the 1980s, it was gone. Some stores became Stern’s. Some became Marshall Field’s. One became a mall. The name itself was retired.
Today, if you come across anything calling itself “Gimbels,” it has no connection to the original Gimbel Brothers corporation. That business ended. What lives on is the memory — the rivalry with Macy’s, the movie, the old photos of those enormous flagship stores — and a lingering curiosity from people who want to know what happened.
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