Joseph Brooks, Who Refined Lord & Taylor, Dies at 84 Joseph E. Brooks, a retail executive who doubled the size of the Lord & Taylor chain and made its flagship New York store a showplace of spectacle, including elaborate retail stagecraft and a daily morning rendition of "The Star-Spangled Banner," died on Thursday in Manhattan. He was 84. Neal Boenzi/The New York Times Joseph E. Brooks with store renovation sketches in 1976. The cause was leukemia, said his daughter Elizabeth Rains. Mr. Brooks lived in Greenwich, Conn. Mr. Brooks became chairman and chief executive of Lord & Taylor in 1975 during a recession brought on by the 1973 oil embargo, convinced that expansion was the cure for the company's lagging sales. He added 26 stores to the chain, which had 19 when he began, and by the time he resigned in 1987 had more than quadrupled annual sales, to $825 million from about $200 million. The Fifth Avenue flagship became a promotional stage and Mr. Brooks its frequent master of ceremonies. He oversaw a $5 million renovation that included the installation of travertine marble floors, mirrored columns and walls and teak wood cabinetry. He inaugurated a ceremony, the Rose Award, which became an annual black tie event of the New York social calendar, held on the newly beautified first floor. The award honored a distinguished American - Beverly Sills, Claudette Colbert, Lillian Hellman and Ella Fitzgerald were among the recipients - and filled the store for the night with the kind of people Mr. Brooks apparently wanted shoppers to think of when they entered a Lord & Taylor. He told The New York Times in 1976 that he viewed Lord & Taylor as a store "that appeals to mass with class - people with good taste and understated elegance who like to buy investment clothes." By investment clothes, he said, he meant expensive things that would last and could be worn for special occasions year after year. "This was all before the Walmarts and Targets came along, and changed the retail business," said Gerald Blum, who was executive vice president for marketing and sales when Mr. Brooks was president. He had a flair for the theatrical, and a real love of the business. Mr. Brooks was credited with nurturing and promoting American clothing designers, including the young Calvin Klein and Ralph Lauren, at a time when European fashion was dominant among major American retailers. Beginning in 1980, during the Iran hostage crisis, Mr. Brooks ordered that "The Star-Spangled Banner" be played each morning at the start of business throughout the store. He wanted to remind people, he said, that "with all its problems, this is still the greatest country in the world." He was born in Philadelphia on Nov. 2, 1927, and attended public schools and Pennsylvania State University before entering the sales training program at the Abraham and Strauss store in his hometown. Before joining Lord & Taylor, the largest division of the Associated Dry Goods Corporation, he was president of Filene's Basement in Boston and held several executive positions in stores owned by the former Federated Department Stores Inc., now known as Macy's Inc. In addition to his daughter Elizabeth, Mr. Brooks is survived by his wife, Alice; a son, Thomas; another daughter, Victoria, and five grandchildren. Mr. Brooks acknowledged deep disappointment at not becoming chief executive of Lord & Taylor's parent company, an ambition that was thwarted in 1986 when Associated was acquired by May Department Stores. After resigning in 1987, he led a leveraged buyout of the Ann Taylor chain for $430 million. He added almost 100 new stores to that retail chain before a downturn in sales led him to resign in 1992. But Lord & Taylor was always first in Mr. Brooks's heart, Mr. Blum said. Mr. Brooks, he said, told friends he would have run the place for nothing.