THE thousands of subway passengers who pass through the Hoyt-Schermerhorn station daily, catching A, C or G trains, probably take little note of the abandoned side platform, which served shuttle trains en route to the Court Street IND station between 1936 and 1946, now the beloved NYC Transit Museum. Excursion trains from the Museum still use the adjoining platform tracks. Neither, it’s likely, do they pay much attention to the large blue and gold panels with the letter “L” on the mezzanine, or the blue and gold trim at the roofline. Why L? The L train is nowhere near.
L stands for Loeser’s, a department store founded in 1860 by German immigrant Frederick Loeser (1833-1911), originally selling sewing goods but later developed into a department store along Fulton Street’s department store row, along with stores like Namm’s and Abraham & Straus, which was later sold to Federated Stores (Macy’s) and closed its Fulton Street branch in 2025.
In 1887, Loeser’s moved into a massive five-story building at #484 Fulton Street and Elm Place, some of which is still visible along the narrow, one-block side street. The building pioneered the newfangled electric lights and elevators. Loeser’s prospered until its sale to Namm’s in 1952 and continued under the Loeser’s name until 1957.
I’m amazed these panels are still in existence and so well-maintained. Their origin is a mystery to me; I wonder if Loeser’s paid for them when the station opened in 1936.
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6/2/25
6 comments
I have a dim memory reading that there was a passageway from the the Hoyt Schermerhorn stop directly to the Loesers’ store building. I used the station every day from work during 1977 to 1982 and there was a closed off section in the wall close to where those panels are.
The passageway is now blocked off by white tiling and a door and its location is very obvious when you spot it!
A&S was close by Martin’s on Fulton. Two great stores.
If the subway is directly under their building, there’s the issue of sufficient underpinning. Now, in those days just as now, property owners were looking to bleed the City wherever and however they could, and Loeser’s may have told the city, “Let’s not let this turn into lawsuits and court orders– how’s about, in the passageway under our store, YOU pick up the cost of all the fancy panels advertising our store, and we don’t file any suits, OK?”
Those panels don’t date back to when Loeser’s was in business. They were installed in the late ’90s during station renovations as an homage to the store. I used to catch the E train to Euclid Ave.to go to Rockaway in the late ’70s and there were no panels or tiles like this in the mezzanine.
I’m not sure how true that is. I remember wondering what those big L’s meant as a child going to A&S with my mom in the 80s. What I don’t recall is that jazzy bit of border, so maybe they were partially covered at the time, or fully covered when you passed through.
Besides, I don’t see the MTA paying homage to a defunct store, especially in the 90s