“Demolition of the old Rothschild’s department store began this morning, while 40 paces away the new store is nearing completion on schedule. The old store first opened its doors in 1889. It will remain in business until Friday, Aug. 15, when it will close for the big move down the State Street mall…The escalators—Ithaca’s first, and the only ones for miles around, are tested and ready to roll…The new store has been in the planning for nearly four years. Rothschild said costs will total more than $3 million, nearly three-fourths of that amount spent on the building and the rest on interior work and new selling fixtures....
Rothschild said his new 80,000-square-foot building has 55,000 square feet of selling space—slightly more, on only two floors, than the 45,000 [square feet] his old store had on five....
Architect of the building, chosen by the state’s Urban Development Corp., is the firm Warner, Burns, Toan and Lunde, and interiors are by Christopher and Gilbert, a New York City firm that has done considerable store design….The store’s construction is being financed through $2.5 million worth of bonds, issued by the Tompkins County Industrial Development Agency.”
“Down Tumbles the Old, Up with New Rothschild’s,” Ithaca Journal, August 5, 1975, 3.