[14] The Gorham, Tiffany, Charles Scribner's Sons, Coty, and Demarest buildings are among the few surviving stores that were erected for smaller retailers on Fifth Avenue during the early 20th century.

[15] 390 Fifth Avenue is an eight-story building designed by McKim, Mead & White in an early Italian Renaissance Revival style.

On the cornice above the sixth floor of the Fifth Avenue facade, there is a frieze, with a cartouche in the center flanked by a pair of lions.

The cartouche on Fifth Avenue contains the inscription "ANNO D. MCMIIII", representing 1904, the year the building started construction.

[33] Architects' and Builders' Magazine described the building a having a steel frame "combined with ribs and domes [that were] self-supported and self-decorating".

[21][36] When women's department store Russeks moved into the building in 1924, the floors were redecorated slightly to give the appearance of individual shops.

[38] The first story sold accessories such as undergarments, perfume, and toiletries; it contained marble floors and walnut fixtures.

That story also contained three Louis XVI style lounges, as well as women's dressing rooms decorated in enamel.

The fourth story sold suits and cloaks and was decorated in walnut; there was a Louis XVI style room on that floor as well.

[35] In 1884, the Gorham Manufacturing Company opened its New York City showroom on 889 Broadway, at 19th Street in the Ladies' Mile Historic District.

[36] As late as May 1902, Gorham denied rumors that it was planning to develop a new store near the intersection of Fifth Avenue and 33rd Street.

[42] Later that year, Gorham leased the Hotel Cambridge at that intersection with plans to build a store at the site.

Holbrook requested that the Fifth Avenue building be fireproof and that its layout be able to accommodate the "needs of a great commercial enterprise".

[55] In early October 1923, Gorham announced it would move uptown and sell both the building and its land lease.

[56][57] Three weeks later, the Martiz Realty Company bought the building on behalf of women's department store Russeks.

[64] Structural engineer David M. Oltarsh added a five-story annex to a two-story section of the Russeks building.

The additional floors were suspended from the building's roof because it would have been prohibitively expensive to rebuild the foundation to support the extra weight.

[72][73] The buildings were linked internally and the facade of number 384 was rebuilt with a limestone base and ground-floor display windows.

[22] The syndicate finalized its acquisition that August, and the Prudential Life Insurance Company placed a $1.2 million mortgage on the site.

[77][78] James Kassner took over the store around 1957 and remodeled it twice, but the small selling floors remained unprofitable and the high ceilings increased the cost of air conditioning and heating.

[16][81] Robert H. Arrow, who represented the owners, first attempted to find another discount store that was willing to occupy the Gorham Building.

[35] Spear announced plans in October 1959 to renovate the building,[81] hirring Herbert Tannenbaum as the architect in charge and the MacArthur Construction Corp. as the general contractor.

[35] The building's colonnade and carved-marble sheets were removed as part of the renovation, and a glass facade was installed along the lower stories.

He therefore created a crisp modern grid of glass and metal, but felt terrible, and hated to see the original details stripped off, and sadly recalled: "Those arches were lovely.

[87] Williams Real Estate, which was hired to rent out 390 Fifth Avenue's office space, recommended customizing each story's design to a specific tenant.

[90] The office space was leased by several manufacturers of men's and boys' clothing,[91][35] including shirt company F. Jacobson & Sons, which was the building's largest tenant and occupied two and a half floors.

[97][98] By 2000, the owner had hired architect Andrew Tedesco and decorator Eric Cohler to restore White's original facade in paint.

Augustin-Adolphe Rey, a French architectural critic, referred to 390 Fifth Avenue as "the most beautiful business building in the world" in 1904.

[37] A critic in 1912 said that following the construction of the Tiffany & Co, Gorham, and Knickerbocker Trust Company buildings, "the standard of excellence in commercial architecture was raised to a height previously unknown.

in 1908, a critic for New York Architect said that 390 Fifth Avenue was among McKim, Mead & White's "best designs [...] for a commercial edifice, both from a monumental and practical point of view".