Department Stores

Furryanimal

Furryanimal

Y gath o Gymru
Location
Wales
​Do you have a favourite?Is there a long closed one that you miss?
 

All of the family-owned department stores where I live have been gone for many years.

I miss the hustle and bustle of Christmas shopping in our center city area.

I also miss the high-quality restaurants and tea rooms that many of the old department stores maintained.

The local department stores all seemed to engage in a friendly rivalry when it came to decorating their stores, offering special promotions, etc...

One of the old stores had a toy department in an adjacent building with a monorail for the kids.

All of that steel and sharp edges wouldn't fly these days!

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I really miss the old five and dime stores. Woolworths, Grants, etc. You could see and touch the merchandise and it didn’t take a jack hammer to get the package open. Needed a comb? Right there, usually for a dime. Not a fancy package that cost more to display.
 
One of my favorite dept stores was local owned store AM and A's otherwise known as Adam,Meldrum&Anderson was located in downtown Buffalo and various locations in WNY.
When my dad and myself were both working downtown in the 70's and 80's,I would spend part of my lunch hour looking at the clothing, reasonably priced. On the weekends, I would come back when I had more time to shop. My dad loved going into the basement section where he always found 'good deals'
A couple weeks before Christmas,the downtown store was well known for displaying in their windows lovely Christmas scenes,people would flock every day to look at them.
Alas,AM&A's was bought out by Bon-Ton,the downtown store closed I think 15 yrs ago.The other stores closed for good because Bon Ton went bankrupt this yr
I have my memories of this wonderful store Sue
 
Pappy said:
I really miss the old five and dime stores. Woolworths, Grants, etc. You could see and touch the merchandise and it didn’t take a jack hammer to get the package open. Needed a comb? Right there, usually for a dime. Not a fancy package that cost more to display.
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Before the dollar stores came along we had a little chain store out of New Jersey called D&K.

D&K operated in that old style of heaping small items loose in bins or on gondolas, definitely no frills just good value for basic items.
 
There were three major department stores downtown in my hometown. They absolutely knocked themselves out every year at Christmas, quite the competition.

My Christmas experience was exactly like that of Ralphy's in "A Christmas Story". We'd go to the Christmas parade, then off to the biggest department store to see Santa in their 12th floor auditorium. It was always a major production. Sometimes there was a little train to ride to Santa and once I remember a slide just like in the movie.

I really miss those department stores, with the elevator ladies announcing what was on each floor....."Fifth Floor, Notions and Ladies Finer Dresses!"

Two of them had "tea rooms" where my Grandma and I would eat....daintily. Sandwiches with their crusts cut off and cups of tea with a lemon slice.
 
The fine old department store of days gone by seems to have morphed into something ugly, cold, and predatory. Hardware stores, sporting goods stores, pharmacies, and others seem to be rapidly moving in the same direction.

But maybe ... just maybe ... as online sales erode further into the profitability of these impersonal brick and mortar behemoths, we'll see a resurgence of small, specialized shops with nicely displayed wares and friendly, knowledgeable sales staff. More expensive certainly, but they have their place. I don't see those nice department stores of old ever returning.
 
Yes, there are several who were dearly loved and sadly missed in my area. People talk about them mournfully, as if they were friends who had died. Somehow, for all it's convenience, Amazon just isn't the
same thing.
 
jujube said:
I really miss those department stores, with the elevator ladies announcing what was on each floor....."Fifth Floor, Notions and Ladies Finer Dresses!"
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Hehe. Throughout most of my high school years I worked part-time and summers in a local department store. Among my many work assignments, I spent some time as one of those "elevator ladies". It was great fun!

:grin:
 
G.Fox & Co., Howland Hughes, Grieve Bissett and Holland.

G. Fox & Co. was a large department store that originated in Hartford, Connecticut. The store was also the largest privately held department store in the nation when it was sold in 1965 to the May Department Stores Company. In 1992 May Department stores phased out the G. Fox & Co. name converting them into the Boston-based department store Filene's. In 2005, the May Company was merged with Federated Department Stores which converted the store and all of the other regional chains to Macy's. (Wiki)

It's said that Beatrice Fox Auerbach used her clout and higher up friends to influence the construction of I-84 to not bypass the store, but provide easy off ramps to access it directly. This resulted in one of the most poorly designed pieces of Interstate in the nation, causing many accidents back then.

The original downtown store closed, but went into the malls before it changed ownership a few times.
 
RadishRose said:
G.Fox & Co., Howland Hughes, Grieve Bissett and Holland.

G. Fox & Co. was a large department store that originated in Hartford, Connecticut. The store was also the largest privately held department store in the nation when it was sold in 1965 to the May Department Stores Company. In 1992 May Department stores phased out the G. Fox & Co. name converting them into the Boston-based department store Filene's. In 2005, the May Company was merged with Federated Department Stores which converted the store and all of the other regional chains to Macy's. (Wiki)

It's said that Beatrice Fox Auerbach used her clout and higher up friends to influence the construction of I-84 to not bypass the store, but provide easy off ramps to access it directly. This resulted in one of the most poorly designed pieces of Interstate in the nation, causing many accidents back then.

The original downtown store closed, but went into the malls before it changed ownership a few times.
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That was a great store!

When I was there in the late 80's early 90's it still looked very similar to the picture below.

It was the kind of store where any purchase big or small would be carefully boxed with tissue paper and then placed into a bag.

Remembering-G-Fox-Co-07.jpg
 
Love that photo, Aunt Bea.. G. Fox delivered all over the state. It is said they once even delivered a single spool of thread, but I think that's just a folk tale. I remember their blue truck all over the place as a child.

Tonka%201954%20G%20Fox%20and%20Company%20Metro%20Van%203.jpg
 
What I remember in several department stores was a central cashier's office. When you bought an item, the bill and your money was placed in either a cylinder or sphere. This was either projected along a tube (in the case of a cylinder) by vacuum, or along a track by a spring in the case of a sphere. The bill plus cash arrived at the cashier who placed the change and a receipt into the cylinder / sphere , and sent it back to the sales counter. It was wonderful to watch these spheres trundling along their tracks (you couldn't see the cylinders inside their tubes).

Different types of system - some used a sphere that ran along a track rather than a wire.
cash1.jpgcash2.jpg
 
My favorite is Macy's but I miss Liberty House which became a Macy's. It's a lot the same, but not really.
 
Boy Jujube, Do I remember that. The J. L. Hudson store. I remember that TOYS were on the 13th floor.
The elevator ladies were always neatly dressed in their crisp uniforms.

I never shopped at Kerns nor Crowley-Milners. Did YOU ? (Maybe that was before your time.)
 
Chicago: Marshall Field's, on State Street, was the gold standard for window decorating for the holidays. I loved that store, and my family took special outings to it, for the holidays. I was sickened when it was sold, resold, sold again, and lost all of its soul and quality. I believe the building houses a Macy's, now. I could not bring myself to even pass by the building, on my last trip to Chicago, many years ago.

Sears was magical, too, when I was a little kid. The ones that remain, now, are pathetic.
 
treeguy64 said:
Chicago: Marshall Field's, on State Street, was the gold standard for window decorating for the holidays. I loved that store, and my family took special outings to it, for the holidays. I was sickened when it was sold, resold, sold again, and lost all of its soul and quality. I believe the building houses a Macy's, now. I could not bring myself to even pass by the building, on my last trip to Chicago, many years ago.

Sears was magical, too, when I was a little kid. The ones that remain, now, are pathetic.
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I was never crazy about Sears, except for toys.
 
And the customer service that went along with shopping there...I don't think we would find that anywhere in todays "big box" retail.
Just had 2 "delightful" experiences at Wally world this morning...
 
Anyone ever watch that series "Mr. Selfridge"?

a British period drama television series about Harry Gordon Selfridge and his department store, Selfridge & Co, in London, set from 1908 to 1928.
 
Wanamakers. Big department store in center city Philadelphia. Use to have a restaurant on the upper floor and hosted many Christmas displays. Ah those were the days. Now all we have to look forward to is Amazon and online shopping. Sad how sometimes change isn't always good.
 

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