Nor is there a scheduled valediction \u2014 no last toasts nor send-off speeches to the family that brought Dallas to the world and the world to Dallas. Just the clicking of locks and lights.<\/p>\n
Another reminder, as though one were needed, that Neiman Marcus \u2014 \u201cThe Proud Dallas Store,\u201d as this newspaper\u2019s great columnist Frank X. Tolbert once called it \u2014 is no longer a Dallas store. Nor a store come Wednesday. Nor, it would seem, very proud, either.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n \u201cPersonally, I am very sad,\u201d said photographer Allison V. Smith, granddaughter of Stanley Marcus and co-editor and co-publisher, with her mother Jerrie<\/a>, of Reflection of a Man: The Photographs of Stanley Marcus. \u201cIt\u2019s a loss to the history of our lives. I am very grateful that my mom, Uncle Dick<\/a> and Aunt Wendy<\/a> are not here to witness this.\u201d<\/p>\n On third floor, where men\u2019s and women\u2019s clothing has been merged into a single sale section during The Store\u2019s final says, Helen Corbitt\u2019s original recipe binder sits beneath old Fortnight posters.<\/p>\n Robert Wilonsky\/Staff writer<\/p>\n In recent weeks I\u2019ve watched The Store, spared the executioner\u2019s dispatch in May 2025<\/a>, slowly fill with the grieving lined up over the still-open casket. One employee I\u2019ve come to know told me the sadness has become overwhelming, that there would be tears enough come Wednesday. The worker had hoped for a wake \u2014 a joyful celebration of what had been, not the ceaseless lamentations for what would no longer be.<\/p>\n What are your memories of the downtown Dallas Neiman Marcus?<\/p>\n The iconic Neiman Marcus store on Main Street in Dallas is ending its run that dates back to the early 1900s.<\/p>\n Most RecentTop Responses<\/p>\n John S<\/p>\n Rowlett, TX<\/p>\n 09\/30\/26<\/p>\n My wife has talked for decades about her mother taking her there to buy clothes and eat at the Zodiac Room in the 1950s and early 60s.<\/p>\n Carol A<\/p>\n Hot Springs Village, AR<\/p>\n 09\/30\/26<\/p>\n I fondly recall being taken to the Zodiac Room by my beloved teacher Gladys Morrison during a school trip to Dallas in the 1970s. As a teenager growing up in a Ft Worth suburb I had never been to such an elegant place\u2026and it was where I first discovered broccoli!<\/p>\n As an adult I worked much of my career on Commerce St just a few blocks from NM and I ate lunch many times at the NM cafe downstairs and the Zodiac Room upstairs. And as an expat living and working in Mexico City I was home for my 40th birthday and went downtown to NM to treat myself to a \u201cspecial\u201d birthday present\u2026.a red leather jacket that I still wear to this day!<\/p>\n Some of my earliest memories of Downtown Neiman Marcus are of going to the Zodiac Room with my grandparents in the late Sixties and early Seventies. The NM Fortnights were a chance to see products and sample food from Great Britain, France, Japan, and other exotic places. On some visits, my grandmother would \u201cooh\u201d and \u201cahh\u201d as models in stylish outfits staged a fashion show between the tables. I felt so grown up and sophisticated!<\/p>\n Melissa J<\/p>\n Plano, TX<\/p>\n 09\/30\/26<\/p>\n Even as an infant (in 1965) some of my first special clothes were from Neimans. As a resident of Plano, we only ventured to the downtown store for Fortnights, but we did those every single year. My mother, her mother and I would spend hours there; stopping by for a popover and lunch at the Zodiac Room. Always treated like royalty even with my mother in a wheelchair. The graciousness of the sales personnel was unmatched. Somehow NorthPark staff never quite matched the downtown welcome and attention. With Fortnights long gone, I will admit to not having visited the downtown store in a long time. Once I knew they were closing, I just could not make myself go.<\/p>\n Candace S<\/p>\n Frisco, TX<\/p>\n 09\/29\/26<\/p>\n What a shame that another Texas dept store is closed and no one helped to save it. I remember watching the movie “Giant” and Luz “Carole Baker” talking about going to Neimans to buy a gown for the opening of the Jett Rink Hotel “Shamrock Hilton” also goine.<\/p>\n Former employees, old regulars and the simply curious summoned by the last call announced in June made their farewell reservations at the Zodiac Room, then stayed at their tables for as long as they could while anxious diners paced next to the elevators, awaiting turns for a cup of hot broth and One Last Popover. They\u2019ve wandered the first floor, aiming cell-phone cameras at gleaming cases filled with shiny baubles still out of reach even with the friends-and-family discount.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n They\u2019ve clogged the Commerce Street entrance, waiting for the valets to bring their cars around whilst their arms sag with heavy gowns from the second-floor Bridal Salon. And they\u2019ve come just to wander the floors and gaze upon the Fortnight posters and the steel binder containing Helen Corbitt\u2019s recipes and the portraits of Mr. Stanley, some with Coco Chanel and Sophia Loren and other icons seldom more famous and rarely more influential than he.<\/p>\n Monday afternoon I called Anne Peterson, the longtime caretaker of Mr. Stanley\u2019s archives at SMU\u2019s DeGolyer Library, to see if anyone from corporate had reached out about storing some of these historic gems alongside other keepsakes on the Hilltop. She said no, though she would be interested \u2014 \u201cfor sure.\u201d<\/p>\n Stanley\u00a0Marcus, left, and his father, Herbert Marcus, in the offices of the downtown Dallas Neiman Marcus that will close its doors for good on Wednesday.<\/p>\n Courtesy the Marcus family<\/p>\n But she said she was less inclined to make one last pilgrimage to the building that would be \u201cthe last word in modern store structure,\u201d as Neiman\u2019s told Dallas in a 1914 newspaper ad, \u201cfilled with a stock of merchandise that would reflect credit on the largest city in the land.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI just can\u2019t make myself go,\u201d said the woman tasked with overseeing 300 boxes overfilled with Marcus\u2019 documents and correspondence and a room filled with his library. \u201cPeople say it\u2019s really depressing.\u201d<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Yes, I said. Mourners at a funeral.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s what I\u2019ve heard,\u201d Peterson said. \u201cI am just afraid for the building.\u201d<\/p>\n The structure, at least its exterior, isn\u2019t imperiled: At the beginning of August, the Landmark Commission initiated the long-overdue process of rendering the downtown flagship a local monument<\/a> worthy of legal protections. (It\u2019s already on the National Register of Historic Places.) The commission did so with the blessings of Andrew Woodworth, Exemplar\u2019s chief legal counsel, and local zoning and land use attorney Tommy Mann.<\/p>\n Mann mentioned that Saks Global \u2014 by which Exemplar was known before emerging at July\u2019s end from Chapter 11 bankruptcy<\/a> \u2014 had previously gone to City Hall to ask for tax increment financing funds, worked with historic architects and presented designs for a reimagined Neiman\u2019s to city officials. But Saks\u2019 bankruptcy sidelined those plans.\u00a0<\/p>\n The bridal salon at the downtown Neiman Marcus has been a destination for decades. But on Monday, it was as still as a museum exhibition.<\/p>\n Robert Wilonsky\/Staff writer<\/p>\n As a result, Mann said, \u201cWe are going to be searching for a new program, a new partner, maybe a buyer for this building.\u201d None of which would be easy, he said, given that there are \u201ca lot of headwinds downtown.\u201d<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Woodward, who flew in from New York City for the meeting, said they were taking this seriously, that they \u201cwant to preserve that history that truly becomes a part of the tapestry of the city.\u201d He pointed out, too, that Dallas City Hall now owns a piece of the ground lease, as do others<\/a>, and that \u201cwe are all aligned in making sure this is handled respectfully and appropriately for the city.\u201d<\/p>\n Over the last year, locals in the art and fashion world have talked of converting the building into a fashion institute and museum and an exhibition space\u00a0\u2014 \u201ca new cultural hub in the heart of the city,\u201d said Paige McCoy Smith, a reporter-producer for WFAA-Channel 8\u2019s Good Morning Texas.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n
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