City of Paris 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 parters 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 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 joined Constant Meyer and Nathan Cahn to buy S. Lazard & Co. from Mr. Lazard in 1874, and from that point forward, operated as Eugene Meyer & Co. and named the store itself the City of Paris. As of March 1874, Eugene Meyer & Co. promoted themselves as “successors to S. Lazard & Co.” doing business as the "City of Paris" store at 51-53 Main Street. In January 1879, Eugene Meyer's cousin, Leopold Loeb, was added as a partner to Eugene Meyer & Co. Leopold Loeb was the son of pioneer Harris Newmark, and he was the father of Joseph P. Loeb. In October 1883 the Meyers sold out, Marc Eugene Meyer moved to San Francisco, Emmanuel L. Stern was admitted as a partner, and the three partners formed Stern, Cahn & Loeb. The store continued to be known as "The City of Paris", which advertisements indicate was operating at 105 and 107 N. Spring Street, in what was then the Central Business District. The store was operating at 203-209 N. Spring St. in 1892. In 1893, the company was reported in financial trouble, and by that time was managed by the Stern Bros., who had taken over from Leon Loeb. By 1894, the store was advertising its closure. However, the store was still operating in 1895 at 177 N. Spring St., even as the better department stores were starting to move to South Broadway. The store finally went bankrupt in 1897.
