City of Paris (Los Angeles)

City of Paris (originally S. Lazard & Co.) was a dry goods store and eventually Los Angeles' first department store, operating from the 1850s through 1897, first as Lazard & Kremer Co., then Lazard & Wolfskill Co., then S. Lazard & Co., then with the store name City of Paris operated by Eugene Meyer & Co., then by Stern, Cahn & Loeb. It should not be confused with the much more famous City of Paris store of San Francisco, or the Ville de Paris department store of Los Angeles, of Mr. A. Fusenot, which was a spinoff of San Francisco's "City of Paris".

History

French immigrant Solomon Lazard and a cousin, Maurice Kremer, became partners and opened a dry goods store, Lazard & Kremer Co., in 1852 in a row of shops called Mellus Row, later called the Bell Block, or Bell's Row, on the southeast corner of Los Angeles Street at Aliso Street, until Kremer sold his share to Timoteo Wolfskill (1835–1909) to form Lazard & Wolfskill Co. on June 16, 1857. After Wolfskill withdrew from the partnership on August 13, 1858 the company became S. Lazard & Co.

In 1867 Lazard moved the business to 53 Main Street. It was a place where elegant Los Angeles women sought the latest thing in French fashion.

Strasbourg, Alsace-born Marc Eugene Meyer (father of financier Eugene Meyer who would own The Washington Post and be president of the World Bank and Federal Reserve) joined Constant Meyer and Nathan Cahn (or Kahn) to buy S. Lazard & Co. from Mr.