Decades of complacency led to stores that are stale and slow to adapt; a lack of ‘pizazz’

Lord & Taylor was one of the first retailers to allow employees to become stockholders, to introduce a lunch counter, to usher in the Christmas season with animated window displays and to take risks on new American designers.
That innovation stopped in the 1980s, former executives say, sending the once-grand department store chain on a long march toward bankruptcy that culminated Monday, when the 194-year old companys lenders said it would liquidate if it cant find a buyer by October.
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