The store was closed in 1992 and the building sat unused. In 1996, Steven Roth, the chairman of Vornado Realty Trust, announced that the store would be redeveloped into a shopping center anchored by Ikea. Will Roseman, mayor of nearby Carlstadt, New Jersey and a director of the Bergen Museum of Art & Science contacted Roth in an attempt to save the mural. After it was appraised by Sotheby's the mural was donated to the Bergen Museum of Art & Science, which stored it in a garage in Carlstadt.