MERCHANTS RECORD AND SHOW WINDOW - Vol.22-23 1908 - Philadelphia's Subway Windows.

MERCHANTS RECORD AND SHOW WINDOW

Philadelphia's Subway Windows.

The Market street department stores are making elaborate preparations to receive passengers direct into their buildings from the subway when it is completed. Each of the big stores will have a station of its own, drawn on its own plans and designed by its own architect. The plans of most of these are now being drawn, Lit Brothers' only having been completed. But the general idea of these underground stations is known, and that is, to have display windows facing the subway platforms. One station will be located at Eighth and Market streets, where the three stores of Lit's, Strawbridge & Clothier's and Gimbel Brothers' all have a corner. Each store will have its own station, as will that of Snellenburg & Co., and each will pre sent a gorgeous display. There will be another entrance from Wanamaker's, west of Thirteenth street.

The exact length of the platforms that the big stores will build along the front of their places of business are not known, but there will be space for a wide entrance and room on each side for several large plate glass display windows, showing on the subway.

In most cases the subway platform on which passengers may alight from the trains will extend the whole length of the store front and the show windows, lighted by skylights in the pavement above and by electric lights beneath, will be brilliant. The length of the several fronts will depend upon how much space the stores can command and how much platform the trains will use. The entrances to the stores will be inviting, and in wet weather one not desiring to go in the street can enter the store without having to go out of doors. The expense of the stores in building these entrances will be large, but returns are expected to come from people who have to go through a part of the stores before they get to the street. In every instance where a store is building the exit to the street, the public, by using it, will not go to the street directly without going on the store property. But when the subway builds the exits the entrance will be directly from the street.

The merchants are doing their best to help make the subway attractive, and the various stations will not be surpassed for beauty by any subway in the world. 

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