Place of business

“ It stands there, on the front of the edifice, which is the commercial centre of this great city,—the place of meeting for the men of different lands and of many languages, who, as the representatives of every clime and country upon earth, constitute, daily, a sort of typical gathering of all nations,—men connected with the “industry,” by being connected with the trade and traffic, of the world. ”

“ Over our business quarters these upper stories, less ornate and well ventilated, serve the purposes of factories and work shops, where the sun’s rays, not so intense as with you, owing to our greater distance from it, are let in to brighten the hours of those who toil. Among these locations of industry are conditions that would surprise you. ”

“ I mean to make the department store of Marshall & Company famous from ocean to ocean. Father started in life as a poor boy from a Nova Scotian farm. He has built up a business that has a provincial reputation. ”

“ In the smaller places, forming the great majority of places, these vast establishments can not exist; and in them, shopkeepers carrying on business as at present, will continue to necessitate wholesale dealers. ”

“ These no-places of business, it is unnecessary to observe, are not located all in one quarter;—there is not a special colony of these monks of commerce, these nuns of trade, where the stricken harts of the vending world go weep in herds. ”

“ As an example of the tendency of the home to split up into departments I have instanced the familiar process of the disappearance of a small retail business, simply because it is familiar, and a case where we can see the tendency at work beneath our own eyes. ”

“ They carried the stamp of their environment: a dusty market-place, in which things made by more adept hands and brains are passed from wholesale place to wholesale place with sorry bargaining on the odd halfpenny. ”

“ The visitor to this old historic town will find no towering skyscrapers nor throbbing centers of commerce, but he will find a business center with clean and well paved streets and modern and well conducted shops. ”

“ Another large item is made up of men engaged in trade and business, from London and the manufacturing districts. It is a very good thing for them that they are able to leave their counters, and counting-houses, and factories ”

“ Early in the fifties I took up my residence in the Queen City, and though a very young man, found the employment ready that a friend had obtained for me with a manufacturing firm engaged in a large and complicated business. ”

“ In England, the chief type of all these characteristics, there is a perpetual growth not only of large manufacturing establishments, but also, wherever a sufficient number of purchasers are assembled, of shops and warehouses for conducting retail business on a large scale. ”

“ We, however, who are primarily interested in the shop, are apt to forget that success, instead of hinging upon shop management, depends in many cases mainly upon other elements, namely,—the location of the company, its financial strength and ability, the efficiency of its business and sales departments, its engineering ability, the superiority of its plant and equipment, or the protection afforded either by patents, combination, location or other partial monopoly. ”

“ Others know better the cities with their varied industries; while doubtless still others, through family relations, know of the methods of great wholesale business, perhaps even of the larger commerce and foreign trade. ”

“ Every thing is here arranged to facilitate industry; the towns are built on the English plan; men of business, instead of being scattered over the town, occupy a particular quarter, which is devoted exclusively to them, in which there is not a building used as a dwelling-house, and nothing but offices and warehouses are to be seen. The brokers, bankers, and lawyers here have their cells, the merchants their counting-rooms; here the banks, insurance offices, and other companies, have their chambers, and other buildings are filled from cellar to garret with articles of merchandise. ”

“ This is the very case with him who sets up shop after shop in different parts of the same town or neighborhood, in which he carries on the same business, and endeavors to undersell others in the same trade, that he may get all into his own hand. ”

“ Our cosy inner office became a little place, and all our businesses cold and lifeless exploits beside his glimpses of strange minglings of men, of slayings unavenged and curious customs, of trade where no writs run, and the dark treacheries of eastern ports and uncharted channels. ”

“ But it is the business portion of the south side that is the miracle of the time, the solid creation of energy and capital since the fire—the square mile containing the Post-office and City Hall, the giant hotels, the opera-houses and theatres, the Board of Trade building, the many-storied offices, the great shops, the clubhouses, the vast retail and wholesale warehouses. ”

“ The Government is willing, if such request is made, to meet the Coolies, Arabs, etc., who do business by favourably considering the granting of a piece of ground in the streets, wards, and Locations pointed out for the establishment of a bazaar or covered building with shops. ”

“ Our noble market-place exhibits the laws made by the corporation; and every week there are fewer and fewer people to obey the laws. How convenient! Look at our one warehouse by the river side—with the crane generally idle, and the windows mostly boarded up; and perhaps one man at the door, looking out for the job which his better sense tells him cannot possibly come. ”

“ They may hire and occupy houses and warehouses for the purposes of residence and commerce, and may exercise, conformably to the laws of the country, any profession or business, or carry on trade in articles of lawful commerce by wholesale or retail, and may conduct such trade either in person or by any brokers or agents whom they may think fit to employ, provided such brokers or agents shall themselves also fulfil the conditions necessary for being admitted to reside in the country. ”

“ If there are equally favorable locations for the particular kind of business, it may be the part of business sagacity to use the old location for rental purposes so that the benefit of the appreciation may be secured, or to sell and move to a less expensive site. ”

“ A brisk trade is carried on in many of these narrow avenues, and the small merchants who engage in it have their shops in the bows of their boat and their residences at the stern. If business happens to be dull at one end of the town they move to the other, or else take a tour in the provinces, carrying their whole establishment to a region where the family can enjoy balmy air, and where they will delight the. hearts of the rustics with their display of city wares. ”

“ Through the doors of the different rooms passed an endless procession; men from the front with the marks of the desert sun on their faces—engineers, superintendents, bosses, messengers, agents—servants of the Company; laborers of every sort and nationality came in answer to the cry: "Men wanted!"; special salesmen from foundry, factory and shop drawn by prospective large sales of machinery, implements and supplies; land-hungry men from everywhere seeking information and opportunity for investment. ”

“ That large factory, dominating a town of cottages where its workers live, under the owner’s eye, and that owner a gentleman who has extinguished the small lower-class manufacturers of his neighborhood. ”

“ Blocks of shops, shipping bureaus and warehouses split up further on into single gigantic buildings, the offices of the state and of great trading companies, full as beehives, and glittering with prosperity ”

“ If ever I prosper in business so as to acquire more property than I need, I will try to found an institution in the city of New York, wherein apprentice boys and young mechanics shall have a chance to get knowledge in the evening. ”

“ I had not time to view any of the other ingenious and valuable manufactories of this place; but, perceiving that the manufacturers formed a numerous and opulent class of inhabitants, and that there were many elegant mansions of families living on their fortunes, besides many respectable shop-keepers, I was induced to seek information in regard to the state of society and mutual intercourse in a country-town possessing such capabilities. ”

“ The same principle holds true in all other relations. The merchant would find a certain advantage in living at his warehouse, the engine-builder at his factory, the cotton-spinner at his mill, the carpenter at his shop, and the grocer at his store. ”

“ It is a busy place, the entrepôt and distributing-point for an immense district, with good shops, some factories, fair hotels, and the usual deformities and refinements of civilisation. Peltry shops abound, and sportsman, hunter, miner, teamster, emigrant, can be completely rigged out at fifty different stores. ”

“ When business is good and driving throughout our commercial cities, wealth and comfort are secured to merchants and agents engaged in commerce in those cities, and it indicates general prosperity in the country to which the goods purchased are transmitted. ”

“ Most of the great wholesale and retail houses, banks, theaters, hotels, and public buildings are crowded into this area, and here is the largest department store in the world, in which over 9000 people work. ”

“ Every thing should have its place. Going into a shop, the other day, where a large number of persons were employed, I observed the following motto, in large letters, pasted on the side of the room; 'Put every thing in its proper place.' I found the owner of the shop to be a man of order and economy. ”

“ The superiority of the business methods of the town to those of the country is obvious, but I do not think the precise nature of that superiority is generally understood. What strikes the eye is the material apparatus of business,—the street cars, the advertisements, the exchange, the telephone, the typewriter ”

“ Its lower course is a succession of wealthy financial and business establishments and huge office buildings, and the adjacent streets on either side are similarly occupied. Banks, trusts, insurance offices, and manufacturers' and merchants' counting-rooms, railroad and steamship offices are everywhere. ”

“ The special office of commerce, in the material part of the economy, is to organize places, soils, climates, all local conveniences of land or sea, and superior natural resources of various countries, as that of the division of labour is to organize the talent, handiness, and aptitude of individuals. ”

“ Somebody agitates the establishment of a new industry in our native town. It will raise the value of our real estate, so we attend meetings for some months and talk about it, after which the industry is assured. ”

“ Nearly all the shops are small and plain, and there are many stalls or stands which require but a small capital to manage. A great deal of haggling takes place in transactions at these little establishments, and I occasionally witnessed some amusing scenes. ”

“ Could there be any better illustration of modern commercial competition than this penetration of the wilderness of northern New York by men who brought to the tents and cottages of a minor health-resort the latest fashions in dry-goods and millinery, the most recent products of mill, refinery, and cannery, romances fresh from the press? ”

“ When we affirm that brokers’ shops are strange places, and that if an authentic history of their contents could be procured, it would furnish many a page of amusement, and many a melancholy tale, it is necessary to explain the class of shops to which we allude. ”

“ A good residential town, of course, is splendid for them. When they go to a manufacturing town they pick out, wherever possible, a town which has a diversified line of manufactories, instead of one which is devoted to one line of industry. ”

“ It is undeniably important to maintain everywhere these little depots of intellectual supply. In a town new to him the visitor is apt to estimate the taste, the culture, the refinement, as well as the wealth of the town, by its shops. The stock in the dry goods and fancy stores tells one thing, that in the art-stores another thing, that in the book-stores another thing, about the inhabitants. ”

“ When religion, education, art, and brotherly affection have joined hands in a charmed circle, we shall have new ideas of working-places, as well as of praying-places, and of living-places! It is not enough that a factory should be situated, as the best factories now are, in the open country, with sunshine and fresh air. ”

“ All over the country, we find the inhabitants of certain localities devoted almost exclusively to one industry, such as pork-packing, manufacturing, fishing, and mining, and even in our cities we find certain sections devoted exclusively to banking, shipping, shopping, dry-goods, manufacture, and commission brokerage. The people of a certain town, having for generations devoted themselves exclusively to the manufacture of say, bricks, have become proficient and expert in that industry. ”

“ The same process operates in areas devoted to business uses, competition segregates utilities of similar economic strength into areas of corresponding land values, and at the same time forces into close proximity those particular forms of service which profit from mutual association such as financial establishments or automobile display-rooms. ”

“ Each store has a definite connection with the central industrial plant, from which it receives its supplies, its workers and its government, for the stores are merely branches of the central work, and all are under the same general management. ”

“ The streets, as usual, will be full, the shops open, trade flourishing; the accountant will be found at his desk, the merchant in his counting house, the tradesman in his shop, the judge on the bench, the lawyer at the bar, the statesman in his cabinet, and the children in the school. ”