A huge complex spanning two city blocks, the Merchandise Mart is the largest wholesale design center in the world. The brainchild of James Simpson of Marshall Field & Company, it was planned to house Field's huge wholesale division and prop up sagging sales. Executed by the architectural firm of Graham, Anderson, Probst and White--of Opera House and Field Museum fame--the Mart was the world's most complex mixed-use structure: a warehouse, a department store, and a commercial office tower. All this was presented in a successful blend of elements from the Chicago School, classicism, and Art Deco, built on former Chicago & North Western Railway property and air space over the tracks. Unfortunately, Field's suffered from the Great Depression, and so the Mart stood almost empty during World War II. In 1946 Joseph P. Kennedy purchased the Merchandise Mart for $16 million (it had cost $32 million to build). Under Kennedy's managerial flair; the Mart thrived. Renovations between 1986 and 1991 injected new life into the building and today the Marchandise Mart is an enduring monument to the brash, inventive, and successful Chicago spirit.

A detailed tour, inside and out, of Chicago's distinctive towers from an earlier age For more than a century, Chicago's skyline has included some of the world's most distinctive and inspiring buildings. This history of the Windy City's skyscrapers begins in the key period of reconstruction after the Great Fire of 1871 and concludes in 1934 with the onset of the Great Depression, which brought architectural progress to a standstill. During this time, such iconic landmarks as the Chicago Tribune Tower, the Wrigley Building, the Marshall Field and Company Building, the Chicago Stock Exchange, the Palmolive Building, the Masonic Temple, the City Opera, Merchandise Mart, and many others rose to impressive new heights, thanks to innovations in building methods and materials. Solid, earthbound edifices of iron, brick, and stone made way for towers of steel and plate glass, imparting a striking new look to Chicago's growing urban landscape. Thomas Leslie reveals the daily struggles, technical breakthroughs, and negotiations that produced these magnificent buildings. He also considers how the city's infamous political climate contributed to its architecture, as building and zoning codes were often disputed by shifting networks of rivals, labor unions, professional organizations, and municipal bodies. Featuring more than a hundred photographs and illustrations of the city's physically impressive and beautifully diverse architecture, Chicago Skyscrapers, 1871–1934 highlights an exceptionally dynamic, energetic period of architectural progress in Chicago.

The Secrets of Retailing, by retailing expert Marc Joseph, is filled with the practical, "been there, done that" advice that has made Joseph so successful-from the Psychology of Buying to Working with Vendors. This invaluable book leads readers step-by-step through the process of opening a retail store, and then building it into a success.

Starting with a look at Chicago’s architectural history, the author examines the contemporary skyline and the structures that have earned the city such fame. Among them: the Sears Tower, Chicago’s tallest skyscraper; Bruce Graham and Fazlur Kahn’s John Hancock Building, the Frank Lloyd Wright House; Chicago Temple, and Tribune Tower.

Got An Eye for Fashion? Be a Stylish Success! Are you a fashionista? Do you love working with people? Do you dream of owning and running your own business? Take a chance and start a clothing business--all you need to get up and running is your dream and this guide. Whether you're interested in selling today's hottest fashions or you'd rather start a specialty boutique, such as a children's store, bridal shop, vintage store, consignment shop or something of your own invention, this book helps you make it big. It gives you the inside scoop on starting a clothing store, including: How to spot trends and take advantage of them before your competitors do Valuable money-saving tips for the startup process Whether to purchase a franchise or existing business or start your dream store from scratch How to find, hire and train the best employees How to skyrocket your earnings by branding your clothes with your own private label The pros and cons of having an on-staff personal shopper And more! If you know how to dress for success, let Entrepreneur help you turn your fashion sense into a clothing empire.

Wal-Mart is under attack--from labor unions, urban planners, globalization critics, and community activists. Looking at Wal-Mart, the authors review conditions before and after Wal-Mart entered a local market and look more broadly at Wal-Mart's impact on wages, productivity growth and inflation. Vedder and Cox show that the retailer has been a force for good.

Todays property and mortgage markets offer some of the most advantageous opportunities of any time in the recent past. This is one of the best times in history to implement a real estate investment strategy. In Big Profits from Small Properties, author Michael E. Heeney presents a step-by-step guide to creating financial independence, developing a lifetime income, and building personal net worth through real estate investing. Drawing on Heeneys personal experience, this down-to-earth guide provides practical advice and specific strategies for investing in real estate. Heeney shows how anyone can build a steady, guaranteed income in real estate with a small amount of capital to realize substantial profit and shares information about how you can create investment objectives and goals; realize what type of income property works best; negotiate for good prices and terms; finance property buys a dozen different ways; make improvements that provide for extraordinary returns; buy, upgrade, and operate apartments; handle tenants; buy a single-family home; implement money-saving tax strategies; grow and protect an estate while avoiding the dangers of over expansion; realize the keys to finding the right properties and motivated sellers; and assemble a portfolio of excellent income producers. Using the steps outlined in Big Profits from Small Properties, you can build a lifetime of income and wealth. Start succeeding today!

An encyclopedic sourcebook for camouflage enthusiasts in all research areas who want to explore the history and development of camouflage (artistic, biological and military) since the 19th century. Richly illustrated with historic photographs, diagrams and drawings. Includes subject timeline, bibliography and index.

Fascinated by change, architectural historians of the modernist generation generally filled their studies with accounts of new developments and innovations. In her book, Sally A. Kitt Chappell focuses instead on the subtler but more pervasive change that took place in the mainstream of American architecture in the period. Graham, Anderson, Probst and White, one of the leading American firms of the turn of the century, transformed traditional canons and made creative adaptations of standard forms to solve some of the largest architectural problems of their times—in railroad stations, civic monuments, banks, offices, and department stores. Chappell's study shows how this firm exemplified the changing urban hierarchy of the American city in the early twentieth century. Their work emerges here as both an index and a reflection of the changing urban values of the twentieth century. Interpreting buildings as cultural artifacts as well as architectural monuments, Chappell illuminates broader aspects of American history, such as the role of public-private collaboration in city making, the image of women reflected in the specially created feminine world of the department store, the emergence of the idea of an urban group in the heyday of soaringly individual skyscrapers, and the new importance of electricity in the social order. It is Chappell's contention that what people cherish and preserve says more about them than what they discard in favor of the new. Working from this premise, she considers the values conserved by architects under the pressures of ever changing demands. Her work enlarges the scope of inquiry to include ordinary buildings as well as major monuments, thus offering a view of American architecture of the period at once more intimate and more substantial than any seen until now. Richly illustrated with photographs and plans, this volume also includes handsome details of such first-rate works as the Thirtieth Street Station in Philadelphia, the Cleveland Terminal Group, and the Wrigley Building in Chicago.