Jonas Long's Sons Department Store
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Chamber Building (Jonas Long's Sons Department Store)
1893, P. J. Lauritzen. 2 Public Sq.
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(Photo by William E. Fischer, Jr.)
This former department store is another link between Wilkes-Barre and New York. After admiring a Brooklyn store built for another German Jewish retail family, Jonas Long commissioned its architect to design a five-story Richardsonian Romanesque retailing palace in tan brick and terra-cotta. Its three-story entrance arch, set obliquely onto the corner, was a gateway beckoning shoppers in from the streetcars. The original facade, buried under the turquoise panels of a 1950s modernization, was uncovered in 1994. Sadly, budgetary constraints precluded the return of the building's crowning cornice and pyramidal gable roof.
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Location: Wilkes-Barre, PennsylvaniaRegional Overviews:Architect:Types:Styles:
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Citation
George E. Thomas, "Chamber Building (Jonas Long's Sons Department Store)", [Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/PA-02-LU7.
Print Source
Buildings of Pennsylvania: Philadelphia and Eastern Pennsylvania, George E. Thomas, with Patricia Likos Ricci, Richard J. Webster, Lawrence M. Newman, Robert Janosov, and Bruce Thomas. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2012, 463-463.
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