Not long after taking over in 1938 after Moses' death, Beatrice Auerbach embarked on a major renovation that added elegant art deco interior details and a signature marquee above the display windows and entrances along Main Street.

While no service manager was ever chastised in this effort, an occasional merchant received the dreaded summons to the eleventh floor to be reminded by Mrs. Auerbach personally of her commitment to customer satisfaction.

Other additions included a major warehouse (Mrs. Auerbach insisted that it be referred to as the "Service Building") in the 1930s, and a multi-level parking garage in the 1960s[1] to accommodate family cars exiting from the two newly opened Interstate highways into downtown Hartford, and the sixty-station telephone-order department.

Allegedly, the construction of this interchange, notoriously poor in its original configuration and on a very constrained site, was the result of Mrs. Auerbach's insistence that the off-ramps of the new highway deposit customers, almost literally at the front door of her store.

Considering the prevailing culture of the 1960s, and how few female executives existed at the time, this story, if true, would underscore just how influential Mrs. Auerbach was, particularly within the Hartford business community.

This was, in no small part, due to the failure of Foxmart, a farm equipment and supply "branch" of G. Fox in Connecticut's Tobacco Valley.

Instead of creating branch locations and in an effort to reach out to her distant customers, Mrs. Auerbach had about one-third of the 11th floor Toy Department carved out and expanded the store's telephone-order facility.

The G. Fox flagship store was known for customer attractions, including a large walk-through Christmas display and a talking myna bird housed in a huge cage located on the fifth floor.

There were two restaurants located on the second floor; one was a lunch bar, while the Connecticut Room was more elegant and featured sit-down meals with table service.

As a result of this merger, coupled with the severe recession that took hold of the regional economy in the early 1990s and the decline of Hartford's downtown retail environment, the flagship store and the executive offices were shuttered on January 29, 1993.

Eventually, a Filene's store would open at the nearby Stamford Town Center mall in 1996 in a former J.C. Penney location, but it would close in 2004.

On February 1, 1993, the remaining G. Fox & Co. stores were re-branded as Filene's, until September 9, 2006 when most of that chain was converted to Macy's, after corporate parent May Company's merger with (assumption by) Federated Department Stores was completed on August 30, 2005 and Federated rebranded its corporate self as Macy's, Inc. After being abandoned for almost a decade, the downtown Hartford G. Fox building was re-opened in the fall of 2002 as a mixed-use commercial complex known as 960 Main.