The department store remained one of Manhattan's most popular stores for the next few decades. Beginning in the late 1950s the store's popularity began to decline and after a number of corporate takeover the store closed in 1979.

The building was purchased by the Trump Organization and demolition began in 1980. Donald Trump promised the limestone relief panels of the naked women to the sculpture department of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (seen in this 1925 at near the top of the facade) on the condition that they were removable. Without even attempting to remove them in one piece, the construction workers broke them up with jackhammers.

Trump was admonished by the New York Times, who said “Evidently, New York needs to make salvation of this kind of landmark mandatory and stop expecting that its developers will be good citizens and good sports.” The Trump Organization responded by saying that the panels had "no artistic merit."

Today Trump Tower occupies this corner.