Editing Saks Fifth Avenue (section)

=== Gimbels ownership ===
In 1923, Saks & Co. merged with [[Gimbels|Gimbel Brothers, Inc.]], which was owned by a cousin of Horace Saks,<ref name=biography>{{cite book| title=Current Biography Yearbook| first1=Maxine| last1=Block| first2=Anna Herthe| last2=Rothe| first3=Marjorie Dent| last3=Candee| publisher=H. W. Wilson Co.| year=1951| page=173}}</ref> [[Bernard Gimbel]], operating as a separate autonomous subsidiary. On September 15, 1924, Horace Saks and Bernard Gimbel opened in the [[Saks Fifth Avenue flagship store|Saks Fifth Avenue Building]] at 611 Fifth Avenue, with a full-block avenue frontage south of [[St. Patrick's Cathedral (Manhattan)|St. Patrick's Cathedral]], facing what would become [[Rockefeller Center]].<ref name="nyht19240915">{{cite news|date=September 15, 1924|title=Saks & Company Open New Store To Public To-day|page=16|work=New York Herald Tribune|url=https://www.proquest.com/docview/1113137105|url-access=subscription|access-date=February 19, 2021|id={{ProQuest|1113137105}}|via=ProQuest}}</ref> The architects were [[Starrett & van Vleck]], who developed a design derived from [[classical architecture]].<ref name="NYCL-1523"/>{{rp|4–5}}

When Bernard's cousin, Adam Gimbel, became president of Saks Fifth Avenue in 1926 after Horace Saks's sudden death, the company expanded, opening seasonal resort branches in [[Palm Beach, Florida|Palm Beach]] (1926), [[Atlantic City]] (1927), [[Lincoln Road]] in [[Miami Beach]] (1929), [[Southampton, New York|Southampton]] on [[Long Island]] (1931), [[Newport, Rhode Island]] (1935), [[Sun Valley, Idaho]] and [[Westbury, New York|Westbury, L.I.]] (1936), and [[Greenwich, Connecticut]] (1937).<ref name=timeline>See citations at [[Timeline of Saks Fifth Avenue branches]]</ref>

In 1929, Saks opened its first full-line, year-round flagship store in [[Chicago]], and only six years later moved to a larger location.<ref name=timeline/> By the end of the 1930s, Saks Fifth Avenue had a total of 10 stores – the 2 large urban flagships in New York and Chicago, and 8 resort stores.

During World War Two, Saks opened Navy and Army shops in [[New Haven, Connecticut]] and [[Princeton, New Jersey]], and after the war turned the small branches into University Shops, catering to the Ivy League communities there. More University Shops would open, one near [[Harvard University|Harvard]] in [[Cambridge, Massachusetts|Cambridge, Mass.]], another in [[Ann Arbor, Michigan]] (1960).<ref name=timeline/> Saks had already opened two urban flagship stores before the U.S. joined the war: [[9600 Wilshire Boulevard|its now-legendary store]] in [[Beverly Hills, California|Beverly Hills]], and in [[Detroit]] (1940). After the war, three more downtown stores opened, albeit smaller in scale: [[Pittsburgh]] (1949), [[Philadelphia]] (1952) and [[San Francisco]] (1952)<ref name=timeline/> where Saks competed head-on with local luxury champion [[I. Magnin]].<ref>{{cite news| url=http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Eileen-Denari-Ludwig-S-F-civic-leader-2547015.php| title=Eileen Denari Ludwig -- S.F. civic leader| last=Zinko| first=Carolyne| date=December 4, 2003| newspaper=[[San Francisco Chronicle]]| access-date=July 31, 2016}}</ref>

During the 1950s, the shift from downtown shopping to suburban shopping malls gained momentum. Saks Fifth Avenue's first anchor department store in a mall in 1954, at Sunrise Center, now [[The Galleria at Fort Lauderdale]]. A few of the new suburban stores were freestanding in suburbs that had a significant downtown shopping district, such as in [[White Plains, New York]] (1954) and both [[Garden City, New York|Garden City, Long Island]] and [[Surfside, Florida|Surfside]], near Miami in 1962. A few were in malls built in downtowns, such as New Orleans, Boston, and Minneapolis. But most new Saks stores, dozens, opened in malls over the decades through the 1990s.<ref name=timeline/>