The End of Classy Department Stores

Select, don't settle.

Lord and Taylors aspired to be Barneys or Saks, and couldn't even manage Marshall Fields

There’s always us, we’re still around.

This makes me sad because I always liked shopping at Lord & Taylor. Other than that museum called Macys, this is really the only upscale middle class store left. Everything else is either low end or high end.

Just like NYC is, R4

[quote]Barney's on Madison may not be far behind, as the Landlord is trying to increase the rent 4x.

That’s insane! Then again, it’s also capitalism. Those private jets don’t fuel themselves.

The world is changing.

r2

So true, it was barely even Carson's

ive always had a soft spot for lord and taylor. they always seemed to try their best but never really got to where they aspired to be.

I loved Marshall Fields, Carson's and Lord and Taylor.

Department stores ended when they started to resemble warehouses. No specialized service, no novel experience in the space and you might as well buy online.

They should have become the theme parks of shopping but instead, chose to resemble Communist uniform pick-up stops instead. When there's fundamentally no difference between a "Macy's" and a "Big Lots", you know "Macy's" isn't long for this world. Plus, these corporations got into public politics which is a huge no-no when it comes to trying to expand your customer base to the largest it can be. Unless your product gains cachet value for your target audience from a political association or protest, it's best to stay out of that realm in business.

R11 To continue, department stores once had a women's or men's club feel: Special fittings, tea or coffee, models, hard to find specialty products, etc.

Lord & Taylor couldn't compare to B. Altmans.

R13 I guess when people decided the slob look was in for good, these places were bound to disappear. People can't even bother dressing up to go to weddings, funerals, church and interviews anymore. There was a time when people would dress up just to go for a downtown stroll on Sundays.

My New Jersey grandma loved going to Altman’s and L&T.

Also, there is zero line between "public" and "private" anymore. There is no public vs. private behavior. "Classy" department stores are going because classiness is gone. People are as dumpy, frumpy and grumpy in public as they would be scratching their crotches and picking their noses at home. The feral creatures roaming stores today destroy everything, leave messes and have meltdowns over sock sales. Some people are so devoid of any sense of propriety in public that I'm surprised they even bother to use public restrooms, rather than drop and dump in store aisles. The world's gone full gross.

I'm grateful I got to experience them. Going into the dept. stores and trying to run thru the perfume counters before you got sprayed by the workers. There was nothing better than going to see the windows at Christmastime. No one decorates their stores like they do in NYC at Christmas. Just strolling along the stores and window shopping. Can you imagine what it is going to be like when Macy's finally closes and there is no Macy's Day Parade? When I was a kid I got to model children's fall clothing for Gimbels for the newspaper.

yes, glad I experienced it.

"There was a time when people would dress up just to go for a downtown stroll on Sundays."

Look at old, old pictures of men at baseball games. They're dressed in shirt and tie to sit in the heat and watch a ball game!!

R18 I know. And everyone had figures. The chubbies would be considered 20 lbs overweight today. that's because people moved, physically engaged in a human society. That's probably another reason why department stores are failing: Shopping is not fun for people who feel uncomfortable in their own body. Now we have scores of unhealthy, unfit teenagers making up a sizable portion of society. And this isn't even a personal knock on them because obviously, if lots of teens are unfit during the time of their lives when they should be burning through fuel like a furnace, something about how society is set up is not working well with the human body.

I don't understand why we can't keep the good, while getting rid of the bad of the past. Humans always go for superficial changes, rather than change the fundamentals that are leading to oppression, prejudice, etc. while keeping the good aspects of society that worked. It's always about wiping the slate clean, rather than just fixing what's broken.

As R7 states, the world is changing. Move on, adapt, or get out of the way. I’ll add that I subscribe to the Steve Jobs ethic on wardrobe. Simpler, cheaper, environmentally sound.

R19 And again, that was no moral judgement. At all. i'm just saying our societies are currently in a period where everything about them is unhealthy for human beings: Physically, emotionally, spiritually. We've created these anti-human societies and we wonder why people are melting down all of the time.

R20 "The World" or just some people who decided everyone must become slobs and lose every sense of the special, the celebratory?

E20 "Environmentally sound"? He owned multiple mansions.

Department stores are all but dead.

Along with good service in a department store, we have lost manners, courtesy, politeness, good citizenship, being neighborly, and generally being a positive member of society. I am lucky for the fact that I got to experience the tail end of the department store experience - I worked in a locally owned department store chain - 11 stores - in the late70s early 80s --- I worked in the sales and display department ( of course i did!) - the flagship downtown store, which employed 700 people - 10 floors of anything you would need - restaurants, wine and cheese shop, beauty shop, fur salon, sewing department, pet store, watch repair, personal shoppers, post office, travel agency, along with the basics - clothing, shoes, fragrance, make up, and jewelry. Sales people in blazers and dresses or sportcoat and tie -- even had a white gloved express operator - miss Sylvia - " relax, enjoy, your lunch will stay with you" 😀 We had 22 people in the display department including 3 men in the carpenter shop - we would sketch props and backgrounds, and they would build them - it was a great place to work and it was like a family -- wonderful friendships --- people worked there for there whole working life - they gave away 5 year increment diamond pins - my boss was there 35 years - all this is gone. ( the store where i worked was the store in A Christmas Story) its now a casino.

Life in s Jewish World.

Sylvia was the elevator operator- did not proofread- my bad.

[quote]even had a white gloved express operator - miss Sylvia - " relax, enjoy, your lunch will stay with you"

Now that’s hysterical. She sounds like a ‘dame’ I would’ve loved to meet.

Also, R18, I’m always in awe when I see those old baseball stadia pictures. And I always think baseball is played in the summer, and a lot of these guys have their suit coats still on!

I love nostalgia.

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

"even had a white gloved express operator - miss Sylvia - " relax, enjoy, your lunch will stay with you"

Who no doubt was a black woman, as store owners would hire "coloreds" for only the most menial of jobs, preferably with as little customer contact as possible. Yea, the good old days.

Well, Marlon Brando famously worked as an elevator operator.

One thing about going to church, or the movies, or into “town”, is that is was something of an event. People had a purpose and an occasion to dress with self-respect.

I just finished watching The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. Anyone here mourning the death of great department stores, better grooming and tailoring, etc., should watch it now. It’s set in the late 1950s, and you will salivate over the production design. B. Altman interiors are featured.

Those stores started dying when cheap, foreign-made goods started flooding the market. People were willing to forego quality and elegance if it meant saving money, and so were retailers. Then manufacturing jobs disappeared...or was it vice-versa? Anyway, it seemed to start in the 1980s. I’m 45 and remember going to Jacobsons in Detroit with my mom and seeing a little of that glamor, but it was alreadybdying.

And R30 does have a point. I really don’t know if you can trace the rise of civil rights to the collapse of good grooming, but the formality of the generation that spawned hippies was considered as retrograde as their politics. There was a great deal of repression and discrimination then. I would not want to go back.

Dayton's in Minneapolis was great too.

I have to say, to piggyback what R19 was adding, I used to get a good amount of exercise when I was shopping... a solid one or two hours of walking around and trying on clothes. Not that I broke a sweat or anything, but it was still moving vs. internet surfing.

And if it wasn't simple mall shopping but rather shopping in the downtowns of various cities that would be an all-day walking event. I'd be walking up and down avenues, through walkways, in and out of small stores and large department stores, etc. Not that you can't still walk anyways, but it was a side-benefit of shopping that I never really realized at the time.

R6 It's GREED!!!!! Plain and simple.

R30 - yes Sylvia was black, but i will say the staff was integrated- from custodial and food service as well as sales staff and buyers as well - and Miss Sylvia had more contact with the public than any one in the store - and there were white elevator operators as well - though none of them as theatrical as Miss S. She even had an article about her in the city's newspaper --- the store also employed special needs people - quite progressive - due to the CEO was one of the kindest, nicest people I've met in my long life

I'm very surprised Barney's doesn't own their building. Haven't they been there forever?

Could it have been one of those 99 year leases, R37?

[quote]There was a time when people would dress up just to go for a downtown stroll on Sundays.

You might even find that you're in the rotogravure!

[quote]Can you imagine what it is going to be like when Macy's finally closes and there is no Macy's Day Parade?

There's no "Macy's Day Parade" NOW.

My father has a bunch of Super 8 old movies. There are several of my grandparents coming to visit us. In one they are on a Greyhound bus and my grandmother is wearing a dress, hat and white gloves. There is another where they are getting off an airplane and my grandfather is dressed in a suit and tie and wearing a hat. This was mid-1960s.

We often joke about that "I Love Lucy" episode (Loving Cup) where Ethel says she has to go change out of her bluejeans to ride the subway downtown. Up until the early 1970s, many people dressed up to go out in public. The two things that ruined that is that young girls started wearing mini-skirts and men started wearing leisure suits. Then fashion became a fuck-all.

R41 I wish we still dressed like that. Maybe not Sunday best to ride the subway, but at least to make an effort. This morning on commuter train there were several people wearing what could only be described as pajamas. Have some fucking dignity, people!

I think that customer service was a huge downfall of department stores. You go into a store today and the people behind the counter are leaning and looking bored or chatting and ignoring the customers. My aunt used to work for a high end department store and they were very strict about her appearance. If she were wearing makeup, it had to be subtle. Her hair had to be well coiffed, earrings had to be small and tasteful, nails had to be neatly trimmed and if painted, in a very mute color. The other day I was waited on by someone who had a nose and lip ring. And the nails of the woman at my local grocery store scare the hell out of me. I'm afraid she's going to open one of my veins with one of them.

Most people just want to be comfortable and that's why they look like slob cabobs.

R43 That was when we had a viable middle class. One could make a living wage from a department store career. Now they are paid not much over minimum wage, so the people they attract at that low rate are unskilled and uneducated.

[quote] And the nails of the woman at my local grocery store scare the hell out of me. I'm afraid she's going to open one of my veins with one of them.

You must have been in my daughter-in-laws checkout lane at Food Circus.

It's a Walmart world!

Twenty years ago I worked part time at Macy's on commission. I had a little notebook to keep track of customers and their preferences. And they loved that I'd bother to call them when their favorites were going on sale, even though they knew I was doing it to make money. Customers like being taken care of. I made at least $20 hourly.

I quit once I'd paid down my student-loan debt and built my work wardrobe. They asked me back at Christmas because I was good. And they screwed me out of my commission. They were only willing to pay me hourly, even though I was a good sales person.

Macy's didn't fall down and die when I left the second time. But I still think brick-and-mortar retail screwed itself by refusing to pay for good employees.

Of course Gimbel's was the biggest to bite the dust. Remember Stern's Best's Altman's. Lord how I miss them.

[quote]But I still think brick-and-mortar retail screwed itself by refusing to pay for good employees.

Unfortunately, they’re not the only industry that did that to themselves.

Stern’s, R49?

Remember Gertz?

R23, I was referring only to his choice of costume - jeans and a black turtleneck.

I have wonderful childhood memories of Jordan Marsh and Filene's in Boston.

Memories....

I took this in 1979.

I took this in 1977

Y’all had cameras in 1977 and 1979?

Smell you! Fancy schmancy!

It's been all downhill since they cancelled my Phipps-a-Plate.

I took this in 1978.

I took this yesterday.

Very sad. It's a new world, and I don't like it.

r58 I believe that is the Times Square Store in the town I grew up in. There was a Pergaments right next door.

Every thread must always be about RACE!!!

When I was young, good department stores were a way to spend the day. You would put on your nicest clothes, and usually there was a nice cafeteria there... having a good lunch, with good food. You could people watch, and observe their styles.. when people had pride to dress and groom themselves. You felt special, with attentive sales people there to help, the dressing rooms weren't dirty.. nicely kept and lit. The clothing selections were of good quality, always the latest styles. You felt special. It was sort of an event.

r57, don't you mean that a Phipps mattress rocks you to sleep at night?

R61, you’re correct. And if you grew up on Long Island, specifically on the south shore, you’d probably be doubly right.

R63, while I agree with you, one good thing did come out of people dressing like slobs: bulge watching!

[quote]That was when we had a viable middle class. One could make a living wage from a department store career.

So true. People could make a living as a life long waiter. I used to love the old guys in restaurants who were there my entire childhood.

I don't know R34. Is it nostalgia? That whole day of shopping, going to church seems like something poor people engaged in. There wasn't a beach house or cottage in the country. Poor city people didn't sail or own boats. A lot of exercise in outdoor sports. People water-skiing, tennis and beach clubs. You don't agree?

[quote]One could make a living wage from a department store career. Now they are paid not much over minimum wage, so the people they attract at that low rate are unskilled and uneducated.

Yep. Making a living wage from a service job like that now is unthinkable. Most retail, except for either big purchase (cars, homes) or high end (Chanel) items, is mostly big box understaffed by teens or young adults who know nothing about the merchandise. My first job was in retail in the mid-‘90s and wages were pathetic then. It’s this way because we were all willing to to go along with it for lower prices.

Now our manufacturing and small business is gone. People in middle America work at Wal-Mart and make just enough to afford merchandise from Wal-Mart, or work and go on food stamps. And it wasn’t millenials who did that, kids. The boomers let it happen.

L&T refused to sell muscle slut shirts at their peril.

R69 true, too many gay men went from wanting to dress like James Dean to some methed out version of Seann William Scott.

Pittsburgh had Horne's, Gimbel's and Kaufman's back in the day. Now it has... french fries on sandwiches.

Lord & Taylor had a tea room called "The Birdcage", and I loved their bags with the violet sprigs on them - still have some!

I love the memory of shopping at B Altman's for small Xmas gifts like gloves and scarves. It is a Russian / Chinese condo now?

Department stores used to have restaurants in them? That sounds really nice. Sounds like a good way to spend your day.

[quote]Lord & Taylor had a tea room called "The Birdcage", and I loved their bags with the violet sprigs on them - still have some!

Gurl, I think you're confused.

[quote]Department stores used to have restaurants in them? That sounds really nice. Sounds like a good way to spend your day.

They still do.

Again R34, shopping and moving vs Internet surfing. I think you're projecting your lifestyle onto society as a whole.Living in the city or suburbs usually have a bike with gear. Either own or rent kayaks. Sure people spend more time online but not everyone sits around at home. People switch it up. People have hobbies, join gyms. Healthy, normal people DO things. They don't use shopping in public as a recreational activity. Poor people, socially isolated people who lump around inside are surfing the Internet day and night. You're assuming everyone is like you. Well, they're not.

OMG, you're right! Those are Bonwit Teller bags....I have some Bergdorf Goodman ones too - they were lavender. But I think L&T did have a tea room called the Birdcage.

All those stores were so beautiful.

My local mall has a Neiman Marcus and a Nordstrom as the anchor tenants. I've never seen anyone in the mall with a shopping bag from N M and only see Nordstrom bags during their semi-annual sales. And poor Kate Spade (whoever owns it now). That store has never had a customer in it and I've walked by it hundreds of times. Same for Michael Kors. How do they stay open?

[quote]OMG, you're right! Those are Bonwit Teller bags....I have some Bergdorf Goodman ones too

I took this in 1979

[quote]Department stores used to have restaurants in them? That sounds really nice. Sounds like a good way to spend your day.

Not just restaurants, but really nice places. Macys Herald Square used to have a wonderful ice cream parlor. They would put a dollop of real whip cream in the bottom of their milkshakes. Now they have a McDonalds and Starbucks.

I used to eat at the restaurant in Lord & Taylor's in the 90s. They had nice tea sandwiches and it was a quiet place.

Now, most restaurants in department stores are low end chains or overpriced specialty restaurants. Gone are the days when it was a nice, quiet restaurant that served good food at reasonable prices.

Lots of department stores still have restaurants. N-M, Nordstrom, Bloomies. All are good, at least the ones near me.

I wonder if Bergdorf Goodman will still be around in NYC? It's a very high end store, very expensive.. with a restaurant. It offers very exclusive/elite designer clothing. Will it survive today's online trends and economy?

We had a very lengthy discussion about restaurants in stores before.

Saks Fifth Avenue now has a tattoo department. That's really low class.

R83 Bergdorf's will always be open, their clientele is rich UES ladies and they won't shop anywhere else. Well, I guess when they all die off it may close.

[quote]It is a Russian / Chinese condo now?

Are you asking us?

[quote]Bergdorf's will always be open, their clientele is rich UES ladies

Ahem! Allow you to introduce myshelf.

Thank you, R13. I still have trousers and a sports coat from Altman's. I also have the store brand's boxer shorts still packaged. You really did get personal treatment there. Miss it so much at Christmas time...the red boxes with the B Altman & Co logo in white, the strolling carolers, lunch at Charleston Gardens. (God! I'm a sad old queen!!) They had a department for rare prints, autographs, and books. I went to Bloomingdale's in Short Hills a couple of years ago and received similar treatment from a salesman there. He called to let me know when some items had arrived.

Yes, shopping habits are changing, but no matter how convenient Amazon Prime may be, nothing will beat a personal touch.

I liked Lord & Taylor, but never the one at 38th & Fifth.

Yes the age of classy department stores was a magical time. No darkies, no Mexicans as far as the eye could see. People knew their place back then, and they stayed at a respectful distance in the shadows so we could shine.

I loved the original Marshall Field's in Chicago, I think it was the grandest department store I've ever been to. Now since ruined by Macy's.

I envy some of you folks. Seriously.

My family could never afford to go to a department store, so the only time I saw them as a kid was walking through them to get to the interior of the mall.

Even now, while my mother could easily afford to go to one, she gasps at the prices. She’ll always say about their sales, “If you want a $125 sweater for $70, it’s a great deal, but I’m not spending $70 on a sweater anyway!”

I’m not sure we’re actually related.

When I lived in Elizabeth, NJ.. there was Georke and Levy's. They were the high end department stores at the time... both have closed since the 1970s. There was Haynes in Westfield, another really nice department store.. also gone. Haynes was replaced by Lord & Taylor... not sure if it's still there, since it has been years since being in that area.

Anyone remember Franklin Simon?

No, R95. Never heard of it.

Funny, I’ve at least heard of all the stores on this thread, but that’s a new one to me.

The flagship Neiman Marcus store in downtown Dallas still has a restaurant at the top and you are able to have some semblance of the experience many of you are describing. Although the merchandise and customer service have definitely declined in quality over the years, you can still go to the store, shop, and then have lunch while they wrap your packages downstairs.

Interestingly, across the street they have opened a new department store called 4510. It was known as a chic, Dallas boutique that was more funky and fun than Neiman Marcus. A couple years ago the original owners sold out and the group that bought them are interested in expanded. The new department store is nice and there’s a great restaurant at the top. The food is better than at Neiman’s across the street. I recommend people stopping by and visiting both if you’re ever in the area. You can make a nice day of it!

I'm willing to look at Datalounger photos (of stores), but refuse to sit through slide shows of vacations or crotch fruit.

Boundaries

Then you must not be from New York, R96......not the "classiest" store, and it did go out of business in 1979. Joan Rivers was a buyer there in the 1950s before she decided to chuck it and become...and become...an ACTRESS.

Anyone heard of B Altmans? Great store around Fifth and 34th.

Ironically I’m NY born and bred. However, since it went out of business in 1979, plus I’m R93, that would explain why I hadn’t heard of it until now.

Thanks, though. Looking forward to reading up on them.

I remember B Altmans, Bonwit Teller, and Bambergers (in NJ ). I never really shopped there, as they were too expensive to me.. except Bambergers.

*for* me..

My mother bought me a raincoat and a haircut at Best & Co. in 1963:

[quote] Macys Herald Square used to have a wonderful ice cream parlor

I remember it well! They had the second best hot fudge sundaes I'd ever had.

Number 1 was Blum's, who had branches in shopping centers all over the west coast, including a branch on the fourth floor of I. Magnin & Co on Wilshire Blvd.

Too many people POOP in the fitting rooms, thereby ruining it for us decent shoppers.

Macy's in SF also had a Blum's. Supposedly invented the banana split. Delicious!

Everyone knows about the great shops in the high street/London, but one of my fave experiences is to wander down Friedrichstraße in Berlin; the basement of Galeries Lafayette has wonderful gourmet delights; there are also all kinds of smaller shops to discover & various aromas wafting from bakeries, etc., are interesting. Further west is probably my all-time favorite department store--KaDeWe--everything you can imagine is here, the displays are perfect, salespeople knowledgeable/professional. It's really spectacular at Christmastime, when they really go overboard decorating--always an exciting experience.

El Corte Ingles in Barcelona is fun, too--great selection, service, what department stores were once upon a time . . . I remember as a child getting all dressed up & going into the City for shopping at the Emporium Union Square--those days are long gone, but Berlin offers for me a really great experience/value.

I just eat at a department store restaurant. I would not recommend, but I was pretty hungry. It was btw a DS bistro, or an overpriced middle eastern, mall restaurant. The restaurant had only one table occupied, a middle eastern family. The were eating salmon at $30 a plate. You know, cost co salmon that we can all get ourselves and prepare better. I laughed at them. You are in a Mall, not on a yacht. That fish was Frozen.

R107 proves that department stores are alive and well...outside the US.

Japan still has marvelous stores, Takashimaya, Istean, Mitsukoshi, Daimaru, etc. Hong Kong has Sogo and Lane Crawford. Mexico City has Liverpool and the amazing El Palacio de Hierro. France has Galleries Lafayette, Printemps, Au Bon Marche, and BHV. The list goes on.

In the United States, most people here have ceased to give a damn. They don’t give a damn how they look in public, and they don’t give a damn about their clothes. There is no pride in one’s appearance. They don’t give a damn about their behavior, about common courtesy, manners and kindness. (The latter three, of course, are considered weak and effeminate a/k/a, “faggot” traits.) They take no pride in their homes, their neighborhood, their community. They don’t vote, or if they do, they vote against their economic interest, and for their hate and prejudices. They don’t volunteer, they don’t attempt to make the world a better place, it’s all about themselves. They are selfish and simple minded, eagerly believing what they want to believe and totally dismissive of facts. They now have their leader, Donald Trump, who personifies themselves, if they had the money he does. The only things that matter are their TV, their cell phones and a near-by Chik Fil A store.

R103, my late MIL used to buy beautiful things for my children from Best & Co. as recently as ten years ago. I saved a few of the cotton sweaters, because they were so nice. I saved all their Lilly Pulitzer dresses, including the vintage hand-me-downs. All these things remind me of the olden days.

Back when I worked on 57th St, my boss used to take me to lunch at Henri Bendel. Quiche and green salad and iced tea.

Not only did department stores once pay living wages, they also offered employees defined benefit pension plans. Now a shop bottom is lucky to get 32 hours a week and his work schedule more than a few days in advance.

H&M is today’s department store model. Cheap sweat shop clothes you can wear twice and throw away. It makes sense that the US doesn’t have any grand stores like Europe and Asia. It’s a depressingly mean and voilent society and Walmart is perfect store for the American lifestyle of guns, junk food and opioid addiction.

I live in Richmond, Va. We had two wonderful department stores, Miller and Rhodes and Thalhimers. They were kind of the heart of downtown, especially at Christmas time. It seemed unthinkable that they would ever cease to be there, but they both bit the dust, Miller and Rhodes in 1990, Thalhimers in 1992. Miller and Rhodes had been around for 105 years. Thalhimers was founded in 1842. Now there is no retail in downtown Richmond, just hotels and apartments and shabby little shops. It was such a damn shame to lose those two stores, which were Richmond institutions.

[quote] There was a time when people would dress up just to go for a downtown stroll on Sundays.

Yes but that had nothing to do with taste or class. It was all about showing off your wealth in public instead of hiding it in a bank account. It was really about social status.

The last classy department store I saw was on The Twilight Zone.

Lord & Taylor wasn't ever "classy" to me.. but I'm from Chicago so maybe it was nicer in other parts of the country. It definitely wasn't on the level of something like Barney's.

Nordstrom is still ok. Macy's ruined Marshall Fields, and there's no hope that is going to go back to how it was.

Neiman Marcus has almost nothing for men anymore. There were like 4 shirts on every rack that could have held 50. They had 2 salespeople in the whole place. I have no idea how they are in business. Saks had a men-only store on Michigan ave which was pretty nice, but their prices were absurd. I did buy a few things on sale there, but it ultimately went out of business since the average man is not spending $400 on a shirt regularly in Chicago. The salespeople at saks were pretty friendly though there were always a few cunts to make the experience unenjoyable (same with Neimans, never Fields or Nordstrom)

I'm curious. Do you guys dress up when you go to one of these stores? I went into Barney's one day wearing khakis and not one of the shop bottoms would approach me to ask if they could help me. I wonder if I wore more classier clothes if they would have asked if they could help me.

r115 no. there were unspoken rules. We had no money but my sister and I had to wear a dress to go into the city. Daily dress even at home was much more dressier than it is now so to get dressed up to go out was just one small step above what people wore daily. My mother in law never had on a pair of slacks until she was in her 80's and she never wore flat shoes until she was in her 90's.

r118 In general, if you want to be left alone in higher end stores, then wear flip flops and gym shorts. I believe the lesson from Showgirls is still true for the most part in the cuntier and more commission-driven stores.

I thought I'd be left alone when I was wandering around Rodeo Drive in old cargo shorts and flip flops but every salesperson was overly nice in every boutique. I was really surprised, but my LA friends just said everyone is casual there & they can't assume who has money or doesn't have it. I still remember how nice they were in Tom Ford, as if I was going to buy an $8000 suit (I tried not to show any reaction when looking at the price tags).

can't remember if I told this story before. When trump towers first opened my sister and I went and we went thru the shops on the different floors. We came to an art gallery that had a fantastic piece of really really thick glass with womens faces created inside the glass. I asked my sister if she thought it was Lalique and how much she thought it was. She wasn't sure but estimated it to be around $5,000. We were dressed in jeans and went into the store. The people behind the counters looked at us with disgust and then ignored us. My sister, just as sweet as she could be said, Is that piece of glass Lalique and how much is it? OMG they were tripping over themselves trying to help her. She got it right on the head too, it was $5,000. I think it was soon after that people realized they couldn't judge how much money a person had just by the way they were dressed.

R25 was that JL Hudsons

[quote] there were unspoken rules. We had no money but my sister and I had to wear a dress to go into the city.

Ah, the good old days!

Sadly, so true R110.

Yes, nice department stores included places where you could eat (the ones I knew were more like cafes than restaurants). This photo is of the Carew Tower arcade (Cincinnati), and the Ice Cream Bridge is the walkway that connects on the second level. There was a nice cafe when Pogue's had a store there. When I worked at Procter and Gamble, I'd often have lunch there, watching the people coming and going in the passageway below. The food was good, the service was good, and the prices were reasonable.

The perfume salespeople at Shillito's always knew my name, and got me to spend too much on cologne. Thank God in heaven both buildings still exist, even if the stores themselves disappeared. And (with shame) my town is now the headquarters of Macy's. At least I can report (I don't think this is a HIPAA violation), that my company handles Macy's retiree benefits, which are rather generous. So there's that.

I miss the days when I would stroll through Nordstrom's flagship store for some evening shopping, admiring the impeccably coiffed salespeople, 'Personal Shoppers,' and the city's 'Pretty People,' serenaded by a live pianist on a grand piano, while overhead, a woman's gorgeous voice would softly call, "Sally Brown . . . Sally Brown . . . "

There's a funny scene in a Jerry Lewis movie 'Who's Minding the Store" where his character is in charge of a 50% off sale on men's clothing. He hears a rumbling and in comes a stampede of proper ladies all dressed up for a day of shopping; they're wearing hats, gloves, dresses and all appear to be high heels. They then proceed to rip the store apart in their shopping frenzy. I suppose that's the way women dressed when they went out on a shopping trip. Anyway, it was hilarious to see all the proper ladies in hats and gloves behaving like greedy maniacs. I guess the movie was ahead of its time because the women were behaving the way people do these days during Black Fridays sales in this era.

Not classy, just the opposite. Does anyone remember Alexanders or Korvettes? The NYC Korvettes record department made me faint when I saw it.

[quote]I thought I'd be left alone when I was wandering around Rodeo Drive in old cargo shorts and flip flops but every salesperson was overly nice in every boutique. I was really surprised, but my LA friends just said everyone is casual there & they can't assume who has money or doesn't have it. I still remember how nice they were in Tom Ford, as if I was going to buy an $8000 suit (I tried not to show any reaction when looking at the price tags).

Did you check out the Don Loper say-LON? You could've snagged something for a mere $500.

[quote]Not classy, just the opposite. Does anyone remember Alexanders or Korvettes?

My mother dragged me to the Alexanders all the time at Kings Plaza, Brooklyn. It closed during the great die off of local department stores in the 1990s. What I remember the most about it was the sign. It was red and white. Now it's a Macys.

[quote]When I lived in Elizabeth, NJ.. there was Georke and Levy's. They were the high end department stores at the time... both have closed since the 1970s.

Goerke's?

[quote]There was Haynes in Westfield, another really nice department store.. also gone. Haynes was replaced by Lord & Taylor... not sure if it's still there, since it has been years since being in that area.

Hahne's.

R122 No - it was Higbee's in Cleveland.....

"and for their hate and prejudices."

Oh please, R110. They vote for their cultural values and for what they perceive to be what's right and decent - the same stuff you are pining for in your post.

R91 And now you're kind is dying out. Enjoy the sunset.

Please R85 this whole thread is low class. At best lower middle class. Stench of poor inner city ghetto all over it. Tool tries to find status in department stores from another era. An old tool, to boot. Lazy and stagnant.

Anyone who grew up in California remembers Bullock's...the Neiman Marcus of the West Coast. It was the best!

Jeez R110, where do you live? In a ghetto, that's where. It's not like that for normal people. You've shot your ghetto load and attempted to brush us all at your level. Reaching & pathetic.

R110, please, we compete over landscapes and sweep our curbs, we weed. Added bonus is if we keep our properties pristine people of your ilk will feel uncomfortable in our neighborhoods. That's our secret and oh, yeah...soap.

R133, say it. Reaching and desperate pining. Tres ghetto think.

In LA Beverly Hills is still going strong with the department stores. Great service, high quality products, even places like the lower priced Neiman Marcus has a full bar on the top floor in the men's department. The Beverly Center, which is not in Beverly Hills just went through a 100 million dollar makeover.

R140 LA still loves to get out and shop!!!

Descendents of Thomas Jefferson or some other kind of poverty stricken crackheadery. I guess.

It's "ghetto" to miss department stores? Okay.

I went to the Center City Philadelphia Macy's last month and it was so shabby and sad. They still have that lovely organ but they play periodically through the day. If they're going to keep that store open, they need to have events within the store the draw people in. Even if the nearby hospital where to host health related activities it would be an improvement over the mortuary like atmosphere it has now.

I think on-line shopping and Amazon is killing off all dept. stores and shopping centers unfortunately..

R144, if you think Macy's in Philly is sad now, you should have been in it when the Wanamaker's family still owned it in the 1970's. What a filthy dump, and the branch stores were even worse. That's what happens when the owners start using the business as their personal ATM instead of a revenue generator.

R110 is just one big ray of sunshine, ain’t she.

Let me ask you this, if Hillary won the popular vote, doesn’t that mean the majority of Americans are not at all what you say, and are Hillary supporters?

Yeah - one by one they've disappeared. Department stores are a relic of another era ...

I think it’s because they didn’t keep up with the times; pay their employees a paltry salary; mistreat their employees, which does not incentivize; and removed any motivation for a sales rep to even deal with customers in the way they used to.

I love Saks on 5th Ave in NYC. I hope it never goes away - feels like a piece of history.

[quote]Let me ask you this, if Hillary won the popular vote, doesn’t that mean the majority of Americans are not at all what you say, and are Hillary supporters?

Please look up the definition of "majority."

Oh please - Hilary is the walking dead. Let her die in peace ...

I only shop at Grace Brothers.

R152 = challenged

Care to elaborate, R151?

Politiasswipes, take your Hilary and run.

How much is venture capital to blame? It seems like once VC gets involved, a business's days as a going concern are numbered.

r154 = bitter queen

"Classy" department used to be all about superior customer service. Given that you can barely even find an employee to assist you in these overpriced dumps, it's not surprising that they are disappearing.

"I’ll add that I subscribe to the Steve Jobs ethic on wardrobe. Simpler, cheaper, environmentally sound."

Shirts that collapse after a year of wear are not environmentally sound.

An older relative of my husband’s worked all of his adult life in Macy’s electronics department. I’ll bet most people have no idea that Macy’s even had an electronics department. They sold TVs, stereos, cameras... they had a bookshop too, that sold books, magazines, greeting cards, stationery, pens, stamps. It turned into the Christmas department the day after thanksgiving.

.I once bought a pair of overpriced binoculars in A&S.

My husband’s relative had a very decent pension from Macy’s. He raised three kids, two of whom went into retail after college. They manage stores like Burlington and stores in outlet malls like Tanger. It’s a decent living, but not anything like it used to be. The salespeople in Macy’s electronics were bored and you could get some really good deals if you just shot the breeze with them for a little bit. TVs were expensive back then. It was like $450 for a 19” Sony TV and $450 was the equivalent of @ $800 today. A nice 25” TV could cost you $600.

The first time I ever saw a windows computer was in a Service Merchandise store and I bought a computer once for $1100 in Sears.

I loved Pergament. You could walk in there and find anything you needed and it was about 1/10 the size of Home Depot. There were real floors instead of cement, it was well lit, things were placed on nice shelves with the price clearly stated. When I bought my weekend place in 1993 I bought all my light fixtures, indoors and out, at Pergament.

The Neiman Marcus in San Francisco has a very nice restaurant. Your meal starts with a gratis cup of consomme. If I'd been wearing pearls I would have clutched them, it was so old-school (and welcome).

Ah, Beverly Hills. Where Neiman Marcus is the "lower priced store".

R162, you went to dinner without your pearls?!

Oh, the horror! For shame!

I moved to NYC in 1985 when most stores were still there. I shopped at Ohrbach’s, B Altman, Lord & Taylor, Macy’s, Bloomingdale’s Saks, Alexander’s and Bamberger’s was even still there. There were also lots of independent furniture stores all over the city and independent clothing stores.

Bamberger became A&S, then they built a mall — the A&S mall. It was really dangerous because there was a subway station right there, so gangs would go into the mall, descend on several stores at once, grab stuff, then run out of the store and onto the subway train. I remember sitting in McDonald’s eating a McLean Deluxe and watching gangs do that. The mall had to hire a bunch of burly security guards and put them right near the train entrance. Those were the days! “Wilding” got so bad that stores replaced their easy-open doors with very heavy doors and put electronic locks on the interior. If you walked in with bags a security guard would take them and give you a number and you retrieved them on your way out. The security guard would unlock the door for you to exit. I really missed that later on, when the city got safer. I wasn’t used to having to carry lots of bags with me in stores. I would ask. “Is there a bag check?” and shopgirls would look at me like I was insane. Thanks, Bill Bratton!

Among my stored Christmas stuff I have little boxes from B Altman’s and Lord and Taylor that hold ornament hangers and extra bulbs for Christmas lights. That was another great thing — December 26. I used to go home on Christmas Eve, spend Christmas Day with the family and return to the city that night so I could go shopping in the city the next day. Everything was 50% off (except electronics). I’d buy clothes, Christmas decor, and I’d but next year’s Christmas cards and wrapping paper for 50% off in Hallmark stores. You had to go on December 26th to get the best stuff and stores were almost blissfully empty because everyone was still out of town or sleeping things off. I’d walk all over midtown and literally shopped til I dropped because my apartment was on 34th Street.

I loved the handwritten receipts from Lord & Taylor. I should’ve saved one to donate to a museum.

I miss.....

[quote] The Neiman Marcus in San Francisco has a very nice restaurant. Your meal starts with a gratis cup of consomme

I worked in a restaurant in the late 60s/early 70s (started at age 13 - the owners let me work on big holidays without working papers) and with your dinner you got shrimp cocktail — 6 jumbo shrimp — beef consommé with noodles, a relish tray with celery, carrots, radishes, olives and a dipping sauce, a bread basketful of fresh rolls (plain and onion), pumpernickel bread, breadsticks, fresh butter, a salad and an appetizer. That’s right — an appetizer came with your dinner as well as consommé, shrimp cocktail and a salad. I always ordered the stuffed clams. Of course, coffee/tea and dessert came with your meal, too.

The first thing to go was the free shrimp cocktail. When they started charging for shrimp cocktail, it was like the end of an era. Customers were angry, but what could you do? All restaurants in those days were privately owned (except Howard Johnson’s) and things were expensive. Eventually the consommé and relish trays disappeared, then the bread basket. The owners sold sometime in the late 1990s, early 2000s. My cousin started his own restaurant in the 90s and he started out with a free basket of bread, rolls, crackers , cranberry muffins and lemon poppyseed muffins but that didn’t last long, heh heh.

I don't know about other parts of the country, but in my area the department store concept became a very outdated business model in the late 90s or so. In this area we had Marshall Field's, a fantastic store, but it was hit very hard by the economic crunch. Customers' disposable income shrank and people were just simply not willing to shell out money for decent items, even those on sale. Of course, it wasn't all the customers' fault either. Boards were commanded by shareholders to maximize profit, which meant company buyers bringing in subpar purchased-in-bulk merchandise that could be sold at lower prices. Customers became disenchanted by lower quality and proceeded to wait until even the cheaper merchandise was discounted. One of my friends worked in management at MF at he told me how customers would complain about the changes, to which he would respond, "people weren't buying the merchandise at prices that the store can live on." Our area also experienced an influx of people from financially burdened demographics and the lower priced merchandise pulled them into the stores. These lower income people started becoming a core customer base for a lot of the stores. Higher-end department stores simply couldn't sell premium goods to these lower-income customers, so they in turn stopped carrying a decent selection of fine merchandise, which led to them lose a lot of the business of customers with higher tastes. At the end of it all, they just simply couldn't continue a grand department store experience by selling cheap, house-brand merchandise alone.

I want to go shopping with Kitty Carlisle in 1960s New York City, even if all we do is smile at people as we come down the escalator, and have a spot of tea with a couple of fabulous pastries at the store's café with gay waiters. We'd have a marvelous afternoon and her hair was perfect.

Here in St. Louis, we once had several branches of Famous Barr, a May Company store. Every store, not just the downtown flagship branch, had a silver/china/crystal department. They had rows and rows of full size dinner plates displayed on shelves lit with fluorescent lights. They had a thing called the "Tabletop Club" - the one I liked was run by this CLASSIC employee: a slightly plump female, who always wore a black dress with a white lace collar, who had been there FOREVER and knew every single china, crystal and silver pattern, from Grande Baroque all the way down. She worked on commission and must have made a fortune, because she had every fag in St. Louis in her address book and would call each one personally to let them know that Lenox or Mikasa or Baccarat or Gorham or whoever was having a "secret sale" and she would save whatever pieces they needed to complete their sets (many of them had more than one, for "daytime" and "formal", just like hetero brides, only better!) I remember picking up a plate of my favorite pattern, "Autumn" by Lenox, and running my finger around that raised border. She was extremely knowledgeable and would have made an interesting character in a play.

Great story R170. You reminded me of a NY, LI staple which was

I, too, longed to run my finger around the plates. You are so lucky.

Why don't gay men keep department stores alive, if fraus won't any more?

My partner's grifter aunt was caught trying to use an acquaintance's identity to get an employee discount at Fortunoff's. It was a family scandal.

R162 Was that followed by their traditional popovers with strawberry butter? It’s divine!

I remember the Fortunoff ad that used to run in the New Yorker, drawn by Al Hirschfeld, of a zaftig woman showing off her diamond ring. "Fortunoff...the source."

Tried to look it up but can't find it.

R166: Yes, Zeckendorff Plaza in Denver! Loved it as a kid.

R170 here - this has stirred up so many memories. My best friend at the time was collecting Wedgwood's "White Dolphin" china. Just looked it up to find that sadly, it was DC'd in 2004. Back in 1981 he gave a dinner party for 8 of us to christen that china. I'm trying to remember the name of the silver pattern - it's buried in memory somewhere.

RIP, John.

I LOVED Fortunoff. Everyone went there for kitchenware (before Lechter's opened, peaked and went out of business), glassware and linens. The linens were very affordable. I bought my first little coffeemaker there, a Braun. I even bought a mailbox there (but had to buy the post in Home Depot). Summer was time for Fortunoff Outdoor Store and winter was time for Fortunoff Christmas Shop. I have pretty little gold bell ornaments from Fortunoff that were my mother's favorites. I think of her when I decorate my tree (which I bought at Fortunoff's). I used to shop in west bury and in Wayne NJ Fortunoff's.

A neighbor of mine worked at the Westbuey store for 20 or 30 years. He loved Mrs Fortunoff and said she was the genius behind the store. She ordered EVERYTHING. She would travel all around looking at new merchandise and had suppliers bringing in their catalogs. She would decide what was a bargain and what wasn't.

He said that when she died he knew the stow would decline and go out of business. The Fortunoff "kids" and grandchildren weren't interested in running the store the way she did. They wanted other people to do the work of researching and ordering stuff and just wanted to extract money from the business. Sure enough, it fell apart amidst family bickering after he death. Building the Fortunoff mall there wasn't a good idea at all. Is that mall still there? I know someone wanted to tear it down and build something else.

Going to Fortunoff in Westbury was a day-long outing back in olden times. There was a great diner across the road. He'll, I'm so old that I remember we used to have to turn around because we missed the turn off for the store because of all the tall pine trees in the area.

Sorry for all my typos I'm on my phone. Wish there was a 5 minute edit feature on DL.

[quote]I want to go shopping with Kitty Carlisle in 1960s New York City

I, on the other hand, would rather take Dorothy Kilgallen on her first visit to a supermarket.

Fortunoff? Isn't that for poor people?

R110 You are right.

Random thoughts re: this thread. I'm surprised that L&T on 5th has lasted as long as it has. For the past 15 or so years, any time (which, granted ,was rare), I was in the store, there was never anyone shopping in the men's department. I kind of liked the tranquility (especially compared with the madhouse of Macy's), but I'm sure the store did not want to be so peaceful.

My first retail job was a part-time one at Shillito's when I was in college. I started as extra Christmas help at the adult and electronics game counter (regrettably not what you are probably thinking; it was Ataris and Simons and electronic Battleships) and because I guess I was a decent employee, they kept me on after Xmas in the toy department, which was on the second floor. Shillito's was a Federated store, and it sold some high-end toys: Madame Alexander dolls, Steiff bears, but mostly it was Barbies and board games, regular toys. It was the easiest (also the most boring) job ever because no one bought toys at Shillito's; you could go down the street and buy most of the same toys for quite a bit cheaper. Shillito's became Lazarus, and is now Macy's.

Last: Stewart's was the big, nice department store in Louisville (it's in the movie Stripes, I think the exterior only), and it had two restaurants, a lunch counter (maybe in the basement level?) and a fancy restaurant on one of the upper floors. Stewart's iterations until it closed are too convoluted to go into; it's long gone.

Hell, I’M so old I went to a rock concert at Rossevelt Raceway. Almost got crushed to death and was rescued by the friend of a friend’s little brother who was in the stands and saw me disappear and my arms come up, pounding on the guy in front of me. Everyone on the ground had moved forward when The Beach Boys were introduced. Other than that, it was a good concert. Joni Mitchell, CSN&Y, Beach Boys - a real California lineup. Graham Nash has a false memory of the event. He claims someone told the band about nixon’s resignation before they went on stage and that CSNY announced it and the crowd at the raceway went wild. Except the Roosevelt Raceway concert was September 8th, close to a month after Nixon resigned.

(Fortunoff’s Westbury was built on the grounds of the Roosevelt Raceway)

R180 I'd take Kitty Carlisle to the ladies room and cream pie her tight pussy.

Right, R131. I messed up the spellings of the two stores.. thanks.

[quote]Building the Fortunoff mall there wasn't a good idea at all. Is that mall still there?

Yes, it’s still there, but virtually empty of stores. It’s not abandoned, per se, but it might as well be.

Oh, and the diner is still there. Just so you know, we miss you over here! ☺️

R174: Yes, the N-M in San Francisco follows the cup of consomme with popovers with strawberry butter. It was a treat. And the people watching in the restaurant was also a treat, not just Ladies Who Lunch, but Gays Who Lunch, some well-turned out families and some business execs in town for a convention (who'd forgotten to take off their lanyards).

And not to derail this delightful thread, but can I just say how nice it was to be waited on there by pleasant waitstaff and bussers? The latest trend in San Francisco restaurants, at least newer ones, is to have the customers order at the register and then fetch their own silver and napkins and water and find their own table (a food runner brings the meal). Because this city is so ridiculously expensive restaurants can't afford the staff *and* rent, so they make the customers do half the work. I understand the economics of it, and it's tolerable in a fast-casual place, but, sheesh...

Anyone remember Klein's on the Square? I used to pass it on 14th Street in the 1980s. Long after it had closed the sign was still there. That's when Union Square was dumpy, crazy and fun.

The irony is most people just want to wear gym clothes these days - but these are generally not people who go to the gym.

R177 here - I remembered the silver pattern - Wallace's "Rose Point."

Thank you, memory cells, for still working! And RIP, sweet John -

WTF do Visual merchandiser's do now? All these stores looks so drab and depressing. It's either minimal inventory on display or racks of shit pushed together that you have to squeeze tightly through to get through it. Even on holiday's, it's boring decorations with no pizazz. It wasn't just the city's that had the huge displays and windows. The smaller department stores would be done up nice as well. What happened to mannequins?

And when did every chain store have to start looking the exact same as the other? Stores used to have some individuality based upon the area they were in.

Let's all go shopping!

Is that Judy Garland buying shirts?

Meanwhile what will the kids do?

I miss the department store pianist.

And I miss the department store penis.

When I was a kid I was forever getting lost in department stores playing while my mother shopped. Years later my much younger sister and brother did too. Unlike me, they had her paged when they couldn't find her.

[quote]And I miss the department store penis.

I have known a couple of guys for whom that was a very real thing.

It was (and is) R199.

Coinciding with the end of class

That photo at R196 is relatively recent. People are wearing skinny jeans, so it was def taken this century.

Wrong, R201. It happened much more frequently back then as opposed to today, and it’s today’s times that people are lamenting the lack of class.

Detroit (Nearby Dearborn, more specifically) had a children’s department store called Muirheads. A classic freestanding, beautiful deprtment store with only children’s merchadise, with floors for different ages. The tous were in the basement. That’s a concept even more remote than the usual classy department store.

Why did businesses like the restaurant mentioned above stop offering things like appetizers? I know we’re more profit-driven, but I wonder if the economy got meaner. Did cost of things go up so dramatically? Really, the Boomers and even Gen-Xers had it easier than the Millenials do economically.

What's the deal with scenes in movies like *Vertigo* or *The Women* or *Easter Parade* where beautiful svelte women would actually model clothes for customers, who scrutinized their moves from a the comfort of a gilt Louis-something armchair? Was that just a thing in the highest-end department stores? Was it available only at a substantial extra charge? Was it perfectly normal in the more gracious bygone age we're talking about here? Or was it never reality, only Hollywood magic?

I prefer Nordstrom any day over Macy's. The workers at Nordstrom at least pretend to want to help you and it feels considerably more upscale (because it is).

Looking at these old department store photos make me sad. They're becoming part of a bygone era.

I’ve never been to any, but I have a friend who models locally in Dallas and Neiman Marcus occasionally will still throw lunches like that. My friend parades around in clothes while the ladies who lunch lunch. It sounds like they are much smaller events than what you traditionally think of.

Yeah I think TX is one of the few places that still have that shopping culture among the former beauty queens married to oil men and GOP dirty tricksters.

r205 Please drop in at my salon, where Miss Amzie will be happy to serve you, and you can rub shoulders with Hollywood elite such as the lovely Mrs. Richard Carlson.

All it takes to transform a hard, cheap looking shop girl into an icy beauty

Is a visit to a department store

r211 Or turn a nerdy guy into a better-dressed nerdy guy.

All the way up until the late 80's, my mother used a certain kind of foundation and the only place to buy it was this completely untouched midcentury women's department store in Tyler, Texas, about an hour from our little town. I can't remember the name for the life of me, but it was on Broadway, near downtown, I think. You had to be an elegant, quite, understated lady of a certain age to work there. The place was very understated with grids of display cases for bags, jewelry, makeup, etc, and high ceilings with almost nothing there - lots of open space, it seemed. All the receipts were hand-written in longhand, and there was no cash on the sales floor. You either charged it to your account, and they billed you, or the little lady would put the cash in a little pill-shaped receptacle and run it through a pneumatic pipe to the back-of-house, where I'm sure an old lady with pencils in her hair would make the change and send it back. All packages were wrapped and taped, then bagged. It was very midcentury chic for TYYYYYYYYYLER.

[quote]You had to be an elegant, quite, understated lady of a certain age to work there.

I’m sure I’ll fit in just fine, R214.

R170, I grew up going to Famous-Barr and even worked at the West County Center branch briefly when I was looking for other employment. I remember my mother taking us to the Clayton branch's restaurant for their famous French onion soup and she always told us how she had gone there with HER mother when she was a co-ed at Washington U for the tearoom and the modeling. And of course, we always had to go downtown on Thanksgiving to see the Christmas store windows. I could not believe it when the May Co. sold out to Macy's and all of the F-Bs became Macy's or were closed. Such the end of an era! I knew a number of people who had good jobs as buyers or store executives for May and then all were laid off.

Of course, I remember Stix, Baer & Fuller before they sold out to Dillard's, too. I still have an Armani overcoat with the Stix label. I had been lusting after it forever and it finally went on sale so that I could afford it. It's held up all this time, 34 years or so. Stix had a lovely restaurant at the old Westroads Center, before it became the Galleria.

Just remembered how Famous always sponsored the annual Book Fair, which was one of my favorite things ever. I grew up finding vintage treasures at that event.

To this day, I love Famous-Barr's branch stores with the dome/rotunda. The first store built like this was South County Center, which opened in 1963, followed by Northwest Plaza in 1965, West County in 1969 and then St. Claire Square, the last store built with the dome/rotunda. it was so easy to find whatever you were looking for in these stores, as all departments were located off the rotunda, with accessories and perfumes in the rotunda itself. And the domes were architecturally interesting and beautiful.

I'm so glad that when Northwest Plaza was redeveloped, they saved the Famous-Barr store, and from what I understand it is now a call center. Conversely, I was saddened when West County was redeveloped, Famous tore down the old store and replaced it with a conventional box.

And the first Stix branches, in West Roads,River Roads and Crestwood were beautiful as well, and featured the 601 Shops, which were in a glass pavilion attached to the main store. The 601 Shops were where they displayed fine china/silverware/crystal.

BTW, does anybody remember the Clayton, Northland and Southtown Famous stores, their first branches. They were huge, with three upper levels in addition to the basement. All of them featured marble floors and some marble walls, murals by local painters, and restaurants and coffee shops. I especially loved Southtown, where you'd park on the south side of Chippewa Street, enter a small building on the parking lot and take an escalator down to walk under Chippewa street, which then connected to the basement of the store. I always remember the walk way under the street was constantly leaking and they had trash cans collecting the drips.

Southtown was a beautiful store; it had a Germanic style restaurant that served lunch AND dinner! That was the branch where the Tabletop Club lady I described upthread worked.

All those stores were beautiful in their heyday. St Louis still has a deep scar where "Famous" used to be.

We had a middle class then!

Back then the mannequins were ever so life-like!

The Stix store at Crestwood Plaza was designed by Edward Durrell Stone, a very well-known architect. Very classic proportions. I'll have to see what I can find out about it now. Hope it wasn't torn down.

Sorry to report that it was torn down, along with the rest of Crestwood Plaza. It made me sick to see that building go. And it gets worse: they trucked in tons and tons of dirt and rock in an effort to get the ground to street level. HOWEVER, work on that stopped months ago because the shady Chicago outfit that bought the property has no plan, no tenants, and apparently no money to even pay workers to spread the dirt around. They call it "Mount Crestwood" now - it is an eyesore and a huge boondoggle.

ThirtynineninetyfiveIsn'titlovely?

When my neighborhood was hit by the first of many Mexican tsunamis in the late 70s, all the better stores decamped and left junk or second rank replacements.

Stores hate minorities

I miss Fred and Nellies.

[quote] I’m sure I’ll fit in just fine, [R214].

So long as you don’t start musing about what your pussy is doing, Mrs Slocombe

[quote] Stores hate minorities

As Chris Rock said, there’s malls and then there’s black people malls. They only sell baby clothes and sneakers

[quote] All the way up until the late 80's, my mother used a certain kind of foundation and the only place to buy it was this completely untouched midcentury women's department store in Tyler, Texas, about an hour from our little town. I can't remember the name for the life of me,

Merle Norman? Alexandra de Markoff?

In the mid 60s my mother had to go downtown to Furchgotts dept store for a special party dress (luau themed).My older brother threw a fit and refused to go because we had to "dress" up ( I wore a brown jacket with a burning campfire logo embroidered on it and brown short with knee high socks ) and mother was wearing a simple sheath dress and heels and had done her hair . I felt so very piss elegant,and when we got to the store and it was all high ceilings and crystal chandeliers with an elevator operator in uniform,I thought it the most grand place I had ever seen. We go up to the ladies dept,and it was sprinkled with Louis the something furniture and gold framed mirrors everywhere,I happily sat munching on these tiny little cookies the saleslady gave me and oohed and ahhed at all the lovely dresses mother tried on. She looked so beautiful and I was so happy being in such a refined place it still is one of my most favorite memories.

When we got a gift box from Bullock's stores we would cross the Ls and make it "Buttocks."

Weren't [bold]we[/bold] clever, R230.

Most people don't know that in 1965 95% of all clothing sold in the U.S. was made in the U.S. The price was higher in today's money. Yet our standard of living at that time was much higher than it is now. A 20 inch Zenith color television was about $400 which would be $3000 in 2018 dollars.

That's too bad, R170, R222. Thanks for filling me in.

r165, I love your memories. They are quite a bit like mine. I used to go in all those same stores.

R219 is right -- there's no more middle class. It's couture or Old Navy.

This thread makes me sad for what we have lost.

And how do you guess we paid for these items in 1965? Hmm?

Well, we really don’t want to know how YOU paid for them, R237, but most of us paid cash.

Oh, and there were definitely credit cards then.

There were charge cards back then. Credit cards were rare.

Department store payments were made by cash, check or department store card.

There were CHARGE CARDS, no credit cards. CREDIT cards were invested in 1966 - Master Charge and BankAmericard (Visa) - and they weren't widely used until the 1970s. American Express and Diners Club came out of the 1950s and were CHARGE cards that had to be paid at the end of the month. Many merchants let customers have a "charge account" where they'd get a bill from the mom & pop drug store at the end of the month. Department store and gas station cards were like that.

Many merchants wouldn't take credit cards even in the 1980s. Most grocery stores - no. Some restaurants took only American Express, no MC or Visa. Does anyone remember a gas charge card?

Yes, some gas station chains had their own charge cards. Don't they still do or not?

Diner's Club started in 1950. American Express started in 1958. BankAmericard (now Visa) started in 1958. Master Charge (now Mastercard) started in 1966.

Why did people grayline this? And why am I seeing the grayline if I'm set to "Asbestos Eyeballs"?

I was surprise to find that Diners Club still existed. Who uses it?

R241, Bank Americard was technically a credit card invented in 1958, but almost no merchants accepted them despite what you read on Wikipedia.

Some people cannot conceive of things not being immediately available for use. They like to tell you that ATMs were invented in 1968, sure, but I didn't see one until 1982 or so. Contact lenses were invented in the 1940s, but you couldn't buy them until the 60s, and they were hard lenses. Zip codes came out in the early 1960s, but they were not widely used until the 1970s, etc. etc.

r240, what's the difference between a charge card and a credit card?

A charge card = you charge purchases and pay the entire bill when due. Obviously a bank is involved, but there was no "credit line."

A credit card = you charge purchases on a credit line, and pay whatever amount you can when it's due - at least the minimum. The transaction is between you and the issuing bank. The merchant already has its money.

Credit cards revolutionized buying because people bought what they couldn't immediately afford. It also raised prices because based on customers buying what they couldn't afford, merchants mark-up, and manufacturers of good could make them more expensively priced.

[quote]It also raised prices because based on customers buying what they couldn't afford, merchants mark-up, and manufacturers of good could make them more expensively priced.

Additionally, all the fees that credit cards created for merchants were passed on to the customer.

R242 someone offended the site admin. They've been generous with red tags lately. It's hitting longtime posters because a lot of popular threads get greyed out.

Important point I forgot to mention, R247. Grocery stores were slow to accept credit cards because their mark-up was so low, and the fees would kill them. Solution? Bigger mark-ups and more business! People didn't mind spending more when they didn't see cash, and that included me.

In this context, a charge card referred to the store's own credit card. I don't believe it had to be paid off in full every month, though.

While we’re here debating this, and eldergays ever hear of a “counter check”?

I saw a Columbo episode once (1970s) where he was getting his car fixed. He forgot his wallet, didn’t have cash and said to the guy, “Do you have a counter check?” I’d never heard of that before and still don’t know what that means.

r240, there was a credit card in 1947 from Flatbush National Bank. Patterson Savings and Trust followed in 1955. Then there was Uni-Card in 1962. But it was in the mid 1960s that there was a card available from multiple banks. Uni-card lasted until the 1970s, when it mutated into Master Charge.

R252, MasterCard was originally called the Interbank Card. I'm an old New Yorker and I worked at Mastercard for twelve years, never heard of the Uni-card!

The decline started once they figured out that people would give companies free advertising by wearing items with their name on them. You didn't have to make clothes that looked good or were made well if you bought jeans with Gloria Vanderbilt 's name on them.

[quote] Zip codes came out in the early 1960s, but they were not widely used until the 1970s, etc. etc.

My mother told me that my grandfather got a letter from Ireland in either the 1930s or the 1940s addressed to “Mr. Bernard McGillicuddy, Long Island, New York, USA.” Took a while to get to him, but he got it

I’ll never forget my first charge card — Macy’s. I got it in about 1980. You can’t believe the paperwork I had to fill out. I had to provide proof of self, proof of address, the name, address, telephone number of my bank, my savings account number, how much money I had in it at the time. My job address and phone, my supervisor’s name....it was serious stuff!

When I moved to NYC in 1985, everyone I knew still took their paycheck to the bank to get it cashed. One day one of the tellers told me I could get a “nice card.” He explained that I could ge money from other Chemical Banks, so long as I had money in my account. I didn’t understand, but said “Ok.” It turns out it was a “NYCE card” and it was a precursor to an ATM card.

Also, they really pushed people to get direct deposit. I balked at first but eventually caved because I didn’t always work on thursdays and often wasn’t there when paychecks were handed out, which meant I had to wait until the next weekday when I was at work and had to make a trip down to the supervisors office to pick up my check and half the time the office was closed. It was such a drag that I was one of the first people to get automatic deposit. None of the lower echelon workers in our hospital would get automatic deposit for years and years because “I want MY money in MY hands, not igiven to the bank before I got to look at it!”

By 1993 all the banks closed. No more tellers, only ATM machines. One of the reasons I’d loved my building so much was because there was a bank on the bottom floor. I could run to the back from my apt and never get wet in the rain because there was a covered walkway from the door of the apt building to the door of the bank. Talk about convenience.

Then it was all gone, along with the Fotomat and stationery store (which also rented movies on VHS for 99¢)

[quote] jeans with Gloria Vanderbilt 's name on them.

The disgusting thing was that jeans cost about $8 when those “designer” jeans came out and suddenly the price catapulted to $30. The only difference was a name on the back. But when people started buying the $30 jeans, the $8 jeans disappeared and all manufacturers jacked up the price of their pants. It was very upsetting to people who were living on the edge of working class, like I was.

[quote]The disgusting thing was that jeans cost about $8 when those “designer” jeans came out

Didn't 501s cost ~$19?

[quote]can’t believe the paperwork I had to fill out. I had to provide proof of self,

First, understand I’m NOT making fun of you, R255 and I know what you meant. I just got a kick out of this because I can see you in front of a little desk, pen in hand and saying, “Proof of self?! Bitch, I’m here ain’t I? Don’t you see me?”

r251 A counter check is a non-personalized check that you obtain at a bank branch. Usually they can print them up with your account information (but not always your name and address.) It's used when you don't have access to your regular personalized checks (e.g., with a brand-new account, or if you forgot them or ran out of them.)

I used to collect credit cards by applying for lots of accounts that I had no intention of ever using. (This was back in the '70s and early '80s.) Accordingly, I have TONS of old credit cards, many for stores and companies that have long since disappeared. Are they of any value to anyone?

Try eBay, R260.

R251 and R259, a Counter Check was a blank check, with no checking account number and no name or address - just the bank routing number, bank name, etc, and the account holder would fill in their name, address and account number and could then write a check on their account. In my small town, all merchants always had counter checks from the 2 or 3 different banks in the town.

And if you were white, and from a prominent family, you didn't even need to write anything down. Just write the amount and sign the check and the bank would figure it all out and debit your account for you.

Wow. Thanks R262!

Old credit cards. I found a bunch recently when clearing out a closet. Linens n Things, RCA Video, Hollywood Video, Lechters, A&S, Sterns. I have some that still exist but I never shop there like Pier One and Vanana Republic. Sears sent me Discover Cards for years though I only applied to get a treadmill something like 20 years ago.

I really liked Linens N Things. I still have $5 light up pumpkins I bought there in the 1990s. Bed, Bath and Beyond is just Linens N Things with ridiculously jacked up prices.

Do you remember when almost all good salespeople would call to let you know when new things arrived that "had your name on them"?

I get Troll shaming, but if a Troll makes a good thread like this we shouldn't grey it out.

R265, they still do at Nordstrom and N-M.

Do you remember when sales people were older ladies and gentlemen - polite, knowledgeable, eager to help.?

In New York, I noticed an abrupt change in the early 1980s. These sales people had been replaced by snotty kids and young adults who acted like they didn't want to be there. This along with the growing population of homeless on the streets, make NYC almost worse than the 70s. Thanks, Reagan.

[quote]When I moved to NYC in 1985, everyone I knew still took their paycheck to the bank to get it cashed. One day one of the tellers told me I could get a “nice card.” He explained that I could ge money from other Chemical Banks, so long as I had money in my account. I didn’t understand, but said “Ok.” It turns out it was a “NYCE card” and it was a precursor to an ATM card.

Does anyone know when the ATM card became universal? I had a bank ATM card in 1983, meaning I could use it at any machines affiliated with that bank, but their system wasn't tied in to use it at other ATM machines.

[Quote]Do you remember when sales people were older ladies and gentlemen - polite, knowledgeable, eager to help.?

I have no idea what you're speaking of.

I have no idea of what your are speaking, Mr. Lucas

A great thread ruined by payment method obsessives.

OP has been tagged.

[bold]Here’s What The First Modern Shopping Mall In America Looked Like[/bold]

Frank Lloyd Wright: “You’ve got a garden court that has all the evils of the village street and none of its charm.”

[quote]Does anyone know when the ATM card became universal? I had a bank ATM card in 1983, meaning I could use it at any machines affiliated with that bank, but their system wasn't tied in to use it at other ATM machines.

They weren't yet in 1990. I had to fly to Atlanta to do an interview with Delta for a part time job in their reservation center back in DC, and didn't bring much cash with me - figuring I'd hit an ATM at the airport. At the time there were two (probably more) interlinked bank ATM networks - Cirrus and Plus. I don't remember which I had but in the entire ATL airport I couldn't find a machine that would take my card. I had to borrow money from a fellow interviewee in order to get drinks at the airport and have cash to get home on.

I was first able to use a bank ATM card the same way I used a credit card (assuming I had the money to cover the amount) in early 1982. It was a Visa from the Farmers & Merchants Bank of McLean, VA.

R274 - its doesn't look dated and tired. It looks pleasant and welcoming.

[quote]Credit cards revolutionized buying because people bought what they couldn't immediately afford.

And now, Americans owe more than $1 trillion on their credit cards. Where did that $1 trillion come from and where is it now?