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McCreery and Company
Location/OriginPittsburgh, Pennsylvania
BiographyFrom: http://phlf.org/2004/11/07/pittsburgh-buildings-in-the-bulletin-100-years-ago/McCreery & Co.
On Nov. 5, 1904, The Bulletin took its readers into the new McCreery & Co. Department Store, which had recently opened at Wood Street and Sixth Avenue in downtown Pittsburgh. In “McCreery’s: A Store of Many Attractions,” it is described as a place where “sumptuous richness is the keynote.
“A peep at the window display is all that is necessary to encourage the most vacillating to make a decision, and from the window is but a step before the interior is reached, and then there is an embarrassment of riches from which to make choice in whatever department that is truly bewildering.”
It adds, “It is doubtful if there is a building any place in New York wherein are collected finer examples of all that is superb in house furnishing, furniture and stuffs. A handsome booklet has been issued by this house, embellished with illustrations, and its perusal will serve to demonstrate something of the scope and range of McCreery and Company in the business they conduct. Better still, than reading the booklet would be to visit the store where the decorations of the various departments is in harmony with the objects shown.”
The enthusiastic writer describes an interior amenity by saying “one must not forget the beautiful dining room where one may have luncheon or afternoon tea. … One may have a charming little informal luncheon here with a few friends, or may have a private dining room reserved and give an entertainment as elaborate as one could have at home and without any of the trouble and anxiety incident to home entertaining. Clubs may meet here for their social entertainments and have all the privacy desired. In the afternoon the dining room becomes a large reception room where shoppers may meet their friends and have a cup of tea or not, as they desire.”
The Bulletin did not illustrate the main dining room or the private dining rooms and includes no information about the building. However, both the building and some McCreery & Co. interiors, such as the dining areas, are architecturally significant, according to other sources.
McCreery & Co., established in 1850 in New York by Joseph McCreery, was the first tenant of the building commissioned by Pittsburgh industrialist Henry Oliver and designed by the distinguished Chicago architect Daniel H. Burnham in 1902. The building, known as the Wood Street Building, was completed in 1904, the year of Oliver’s death, and resulted in Oliver’s estate commissioning Burnham to design the Henry W. Oliver Building on Smithfield Street at Sixth Avenue.
Five Burnham-designed buildings are still standing in Pittsburgh.
McCreery & Co. was the authorized western Pennsylvania agent for Gustav Stickley’s Craftsman Workshop furniture, lighting fixtures, textiles, and accessories. Stickley was the leading proponent of American Arts and Crafts design, advertised throughout the country in his magazine, The Craftsman.
Shoppers could purchase Stickley products displayed in a special department, the “Craftsman Room,” and the dining rooms were furnished with his products. An advertisement for McCreery’s “Craftsman Room” was reproduced in “American Arts & Crafts: Virtue in Design” (1990) and McCreery’s main dining room is illustrated in David Cathers’ recent authoritative study of Gustav Stickley (2003).
McCreery & Co. went out of business in 1938. Today, the Wood Street Building “its facade drastically and ineptly altered” houses offices. It is mentioned and its torso illustrated in Kristen Schaffer’s “Daniel H. Burnham, Visionary Architect and Planner” (2003).
