Knapp's special section: Re-opening the store

HISTORICAL SOCIETY AUCTION RECALLS THE BUSTLE OF KNAPP´S IN ITS HEYDAY

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Designers and builders turned themselves inside out to re-create the streamlined shell of Knapp´s Department Store and fit the building out for new uses, but there was nothing they could do to turn back the clock and bring back the bustle that once filled the store.

"For one day, we´ll try to put some of that life back into the building," said Valerie Marvin, president of the Historical Society of Greater Lansing.

With apartments on top and businesses moving in to the middle levels, the old store´s airy main floor, still awaiting new tenants, is the best place to squint and imagine a Christmas rush circa 1948, 1957 or 1969.

"You´d put on good clothes and you´d come down after dark to see the Christmas windows," Marvin said. "You´d go inside and see anything you could possibly desire. This is where you came to dream."

During Christmas rushes, the escalators overflowed with bodies and the counters were jammed two and three deep. In the early 1960s, Knapp´s boasted that the store drew 5 million people a year.

The old sales floor is also the space where Marvin and her colleagues will set up shop Nov. 15, with an exhibit of memorabilia from Knapp´s Department Store, a slide show of historic images, building tours and a guest speaker on old department stores to assist the imagination.

A silent auction and live auction will raise money for the Historical Society´s push to start a Lansing history museum.

Live auction items include a getaways at Lansing´s English Inn and Mackinac Island, dinner for eight at Lansing´s historic Harper House, wine and beer packages, and more. More than 120 silent auction items include artifacts from Lansing history, books, CDs, art, historic photographs and more.

The Saturday event will feature talks by Marvin and an expert in Michigan department stores, Bruce Kopytek, author of the book "Jacobsen´s: I Miss it So."

Marvin and Kopytek will lead tours of the building and talk about its history and renovation. The tours will include a walkthrough of the fifthfloor apartments that are part of the building´s conversion to mixed use.

So far, the group has gathered about three dozen items related to Knapp´s to put on display in the old storefront windows looking onto Washtenaw Street and Washington Square, but there may be more than that by the day of the event.

BREAKFAST WITH SANTA

Marvin is amazed at how many old boxes inscribed with the Knapp´s logo, some with the merchandise still inside, people have pulled out of their closets.

"That says something about how much affection people have for the store," she said. "They want to keep that connection with it."

The exhibit will include several hat boxes, some with fanciful hats still inside, commemorative cups from a "breakfast with Santa" and a gilt-edged program from the store´s gala 50th Golden Jubilee Banquet in 1946. (Among the guests at the banquet were Edgar A. Guest, the Detroit poet, who gave an address to a group assembled at the Olds Hotel.)

There´s a prom dress made of plaid taffeta bought at Knapp´s and a 1955 wedding dress, bought on layaway by a woman from St. Johns.

"She still has the layaway receipt," Marvin said.

Whenever possible, Marvin looked for the stories behind the objects.

Historical society member Susan Ward still has a metal dollhouse, with furniture and dolls, from Knapp´s she got for Christmas in the 1960s.

As a child, Ward became fascinated by a Madame Alexander bride doll that stared her in the face every time she rode the escalator to the toy department.

Her parents bought her the doll, but she didn´t like its "given" (on the box) name, Sissy. In honor of Queen Elizabeth´s 1953 coronation, she renamed it Elizabeth.

"Her mother was a single working woman," Marvin said. "Looking back, Ward realized that the dollhouse wasn´t cheap. Her mother and her grandparents must have pooled their resources to buy it."

Marvin is finding it hard to get a grasp on the range of merchandise at Knapp´s.

"You could literally outfit your life from birth to death," she said. "Clothing, jewelry, perfume, undergarments, shoes, wedding dresses, business attire."

Many folks just came to Knapp´s to window shop or eat in the basement cafeteria. Marvin´s mother was among them.

"Her father was a butcher," she said. "They didn´t have a lot of money. They would take the bus (a 40-mile trip) from Owosso and browse around, not buy anything, and go down to the cafeteria and have lunch."

Owosso´s population was 17,000 in 1960; Lansing´s was over 110,000.

CORSETS AND CLOSETS

Besides sharing individual stories from nostalgic customers, Marvin and Kopytek will put the store´s history into broader perspective.

Department stores were at the heart of many changes in 20th century American life. One of the stories that interests Marvin most is the rise of ready-made clothing.

"Women´s fashions relaxed, so you´re not tightly corseted, wearing custom made clothing that sticks to every inch of you," Marvin said. "You have a looser style, knit fabrics, washable materials."

Marvin will explain how the advent of downtown department stores dovetailed with the rise of the middle class, fueled by the industrial revolution.

"We could mass produce items that were of a good quality," Marvin said. "You could own 10 pairs of pants instead of one or two. People had the spending power to amass these objects."

Pull that thread a little more and you discover how department stores changed the layout of your house or apartment. Why did houses start including closets? To hold all that stuff people started buying at places like Knapp´s.

"Your clothes wouldn´t fit on one or two hooks anymore, or fit in a dresser," Marvin said.

Marvin was struck by the public´s interest in Knapp´s long before the building was renovated.

"I found that there are two buildings downtown that everyone talks about," Marvin said. "One is the Capitol. Knapp´s is the other one."

Even the spectacular Ottawa Street Power Station, renovated in 2011 into the headquarters of the Accident Fund Insurance Co. of America, was not a place for people and never had the emotional impact of Knapp´s.

"Everyone seems to have set their foot through the door at one time or another," Marvin said.

Marvin is finding out that Knapp´s is a treasure trove of stories, as befits a structure of its size and weight.

"Physically, it´s such a big presence," she said. "It doesn´t get any bigger than this."

Historical Society of Greater Lansing

Knapp´s Dept. Store tours, exhibits, slides, lecture Silent and live Auctions 4 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 15 Knapp´s Centre $15 Tickets available at lansinghistory.org or at the door

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