Sears, Roebuck and Company Department Store
The Sears, Roebuck and Company Department Store is a 1941 retail building on Wisconsin Avenue in Tenleytown designed in early 1940s Moderne style with clean, functional lines. It features a rooftop parking lot for about 300 cars and an interior layout adapted for modern shopping with air conditioning and heating throughout.
Richard Sears and Alvah Roebuck founded the company in the 1880s as mail-order merchants, bringing goods to people who could not reach city stores. The Tenleytown location opening in 1941 marked the start of building large neighborhood shops, and modifications for the Metro station in 1975 adapted it to modern public transportation.
The store's name honors founders Richard Sears and Alvah Roebuck, whose mail-order vision served people unable to reach city shops. This building represents the shift from downtown shopping to neighborhood retail, reflecting how suburban families came to live and shop after World War II.
The location is easily reached by the Tenleytown-AU Metro station, built nearby in 1975, offering convenient public transportation access to the site. The large retail space with level entry and modern climate control systems makes shopping comfortable regardless of weather conditions.
The rooftop parking lot was an innovative 1941 solution to house cars without clogging streets, now considered an early example of thoughtful urban design. Architects John Stokes Redden and John G. Raben created a building that put practicality and forward thinking at the center of its design.
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