Background
Bonwit was born near Hanover, Germany, the son of Bernard Bonwit.
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Paul Bonwit
Edit ProfileCareer
Bonwit controlled the company bearing his name from its founding in 1895 until its sale in 1934. Wanting his own business, Bonwit established a store in New York at Sixth Avenue and Eighteenth Street in 1895. Two years later Edmund Doctorate. Teller and he relocated their establishment (now known as ) to Sixth Avenue and Twenty-third Street.
The partners incorporated their firm in 1907 as & Company and in 1911 relocated yet again, this time to the corner of Fifth Avenue and Thirty-eighth Street.
In 1930 Bonwit chose a new address farther north on Fifth Avenue – the former A.T. Stewart & Company building at Fifty-sixth Street. In 1931, the company drew the attention of noted financier Floyd Odlum who made a significant investment into the company.
Bonwit agreed to let Odlum"s wife Hortense serve as a consultant to the company in 1932. The company enjoyed success under the direction of the Odlums.
In May 1979, the developer Donald Trump acquired and later demolished the Fifth Avenue store in order to make room for the Trump Tower.
During his business career, Bonwit sat on the boards of both Harriman National Bank and A. Sulka & Company, while he also maintained an interest in philanthropies and the arts Bonwit maintained an active interest in philanthropies and the arts He died in Manhattan in 1939 after a brief illness and is interred in a private mausoleum in Kensico Cemetery in Valhalla, New New York
