Edergays what major department stores were in the city/town you lived in ?

The Denver - Denver, of course

In Miami it was Burdines, Jordan Marsh and Richards.

My little suburb didn't have its own department stores, but we had:

Oakland: Capwell's (flagship), Rhodes

Berkeley: Hink's

San Francisco: Macy's, The Emporium, The White House, City of Paris. Later: Liberty House

And of course Sears, JCPenney, Montgomery Ward

Pasadena, Ca

I. Magnin

Bullock's Pasadena (beautiful example of a Streamline Moderne building)

Going "in town" to Jordans' was a big deal. Boston btw.

The blueberry muffins were a treat.

Also Gilchrists' for almond macaroons.

There was the yearly torture of navy blazers at Brooks Brothers' before Easter.

Also, as a good baby gay, shoe shopping with my mother at Bonwitts'.

She had/has big feet.

Seattle - The Bon Marche , Fredrick and Nelson's, Nordstroms (originally just shoes)

Gimbels

Kaufmann's

Horne's

I'm going to let yinz guess where these stores were. Hint: The fictional Pearson family probably shopped at one or more.

The Globe Store and Scranton Dry Goods, later Oppenheimers. Samters for better men's clothing.

Indiana: Wolf & Dessauer, Hutner’s Paris, L.S.Ayres, Stillman’s, Nobbson’s.

Montreal in the 80’s: Eaton’s, The Bay and the 2 higher end ones: Holt’s and Ogilvy’s. I just did a search and now it’s Holt Renfrew Ogilvy

Buffums'

R10: You also had a Simpsons until around 1991!

I miss the great department stores terribly! In Chicago we had:

First and Foremont, Marshall Field & Co. Absolutely wonderful place, a wonderland back in the day! While the building is still open under the Macy name, with a few nods to the Marshall Field background, they have none of the services or high end merchandise that Field's was famous for. Another great store was Carson, Pirie, Scott & Co., along with Wieboldt's. All of these department stores had their own restaurants, some of them had multiple. Other great stores were Maurice L. Rothschild & Co., Henry Lytton & Co., of course Montgomery Ward & Co., (their downtown branch was originally the Fair Store) and Sears. On the budget end there was Goldblatt's on South State Street with their budget floor. Funny story, I worked with a guy who shopped the budget basement every lunch hour. One day he bought a toilet to install in the bathroom he was putting in the basement. Taking it home on the commuter train, there were no seats, so he plopped it down in the middle of the aisle and sat on the toilet all the way home. Heads were turning.

There were some smaller local department stores, like Gilmore's in Oak Park, and the Marshall Field branch store in Oak Park. I learned to listen to opera listening to the Metropolitan Opera of the Air with Milton Cross, sitting with my maternal grandfather in the parking lot behind Field's, while waiting for my grandmother, My paternal grandmother was a much more conservative shopper, going to little neighborhood department stores like The Cragin Department Store and Leslie's, both on Armitage Avenue. The Crawford Department Store and Madigans had moved from their original Madison Street West Side Chicago locations out to the suburbs by the time I was growing up, but I did hear stories about the old city locations.

Gone are the days when you could go to a store like Field's or Carson's and really explore, and discover things that you really couldn't find elsewhere. The clothing was first rate, and the sales staff was really well trained and taught generations of unschooled buyers the differences between different types of products, sharing their experience to their customers. A working class housewife who had come into money could go into one of those stores and be treated as a valued customer, and be gently advised on what purchases would suit them the best.

Seems today they all carry the same stuff, maybe a different label, but the only difference now is price.

Neiman Marcus

Sanger Harris

Titche's

Hudson’s, Jacobson’s

Hahnes A&S

-New Jersey circa 1984

Queens, New York... May's, Korvettes, Ohrbach's, Alexander's, A & S

Foley's in Houston. I had my first job there (natch for a young gayling...) and I think I lied about my age (told 'em I was 16 when I was just 15) b/c I wanted a job to have more pocket money. Worked in the Men's dept. Learned how to fold clothes REALLY well

Marshall Field’s in Oak Park, IL already mentioned up thread. It closed when I was a kid, and I remember thinking it was a loss for the community. A shoe store and then Borders went in a couple years later. That’s now long gone too.

Madison, Wisconsin:

Madison-based Manchester's, defunct c. 1985.

Gimbel's, later Marshall Field's (RIP), currently Macy's.

Prange's, later Younker's, later Boston Store, now defunct as of 2018.

And the ubiquitous Sears and JC Penney, currently still in operation.

Shillito's, McAlpin's and Mabley & Carew in Cincinnati. Getting on a bus to spend the day downtown was a special event. Shillito's had a lunch counter, which looked rather fancy to me. Ladies wore white gloves and hats while shopping. There was a mezzanine with windows that looked over the sun deck at the prestigious men's club next door. If you opened the curtains, you could see the men laying out naked. Lots of giggles always followed this tidbit of information... I wonder how many ladies were brazen enough to check it out.

New York - Macys, Alexanders. Denver - May D&F. San Francisco - Nordstrom, Needless Markup (Nieman Marcus)....

Pittsburgh: Kaufmanns/Macy's and Hornes.

Boston:

Jordan Marsh and Filene's (incl. the Basement) and Woolworth's in Downtown Crossing on Washington St. All closed.

It's now a Macy's, Primark, and a Marshall's.

Now who’s got some stories of the men’s room action in those suburban department stores back in the day?

Washington, DC: Woodward & Lothrop, Hecht’s, and of course Sears.

[quote]Montreal in the 80’s: Eaton’s . . .

I say this every time a thread like this turns up, but it's always true so I'll say it again:

Damn, I miss Eaton's. It was everything a department store should be.

R2, another Miami resident here in the 80's, oh man, we used to steal so much shit from Burdines. It seemed so ritzy back in the day. When I moved to Jacksonville in the late 80s, they had a Dillards, which was a new one to me.

Traverse City, MI was a small town when I was a kid but we had our own glamorous department store, Milliken's, owned by a local family whose son, Bill Milliken, a MODERATE, environmentally-aware Republican (now as extinct as department stores themselves) served as governor of Michigan from 1969-1983. My parents went to school with him and Mom worked the jewelry counter at Milliken's when she was young. All our school clothes were purchased there. The store had children's clothes, ladies' clothes, shoes, and accessories, china and housewares. It featured a mezzanine with books, stationary, candy, and gifts, a tea room, a bakery, and, of course, a bargain basement. The merchandise was of high quality and it was a real landmark. Unfortunately, the building is now a crappy coffee shop where tourists congregate to bellow into their cell phones. Ugh.

London.

Harrods

Selfridges

Peter Jones

They were the three that featured in my life.

Harrods was really something. You could buy everything there. We even bought my dog there. You'd go for the day. It was an experience every time. They used to advertise "enter a different world" and it was. Londoners used it. Now it's an overpriced claustrophobic tourist shithole.

I used to have my hair cut there. Go for lunch. The bank was in there. One of the best toy shops in London. Record store. Music store. Clothes. The pet department was two whole rooms. They called it The Zoo.

& of course the groovy "Way In" on the top floor. You entered a psychedelic elevator with rock music blasting to take you there.

I was in TN for a short time in the mid 80s, I remember a Goldsmith's Dept Store.

Also in the 80s, Bullock's in CA.

I concur with the comment above. I had the pleasure of living in Toronto for a while and really enjoyed Eatons, The Bay, Canadian Tire, Holt's, and Honest Ed's. I still have my Viking microwave in the kitchen, along with a Viking radio, my Hudson Bay blankets and blanket coat, and a wonderful heavy sweater from Holt Renfrew. We also can't overlook Holmes in New Orleans. Loved to go there with my aunt and uncle. Still have some things from there too. Shame all of these great stores are gone!

R28 I loved Burdines.

R13, thank you for such a great summary of the Chicago stores.

Los Angeles Bullocks (upscale) as well as I.Magnin, Bloomingdales May Company - more middle class Ohrbachs - like an old time Mervyns located on the Miracke Mile near La Brea Tarpits towards downtown

Dallas

Neiman Marcus, Sanger Harris , Titches

r35 The Ohrbach's on Wilshire is now the Petersen Automotive Museum. And the May Co. across the street is going to be the Motion Picture Academy Museum.

And you forgot the Broadway, Buffum's, and Robinson's. There weren't any Bloomingdale's in LA when I moved there in '87--they came later. There was a short-lived Bonwit Teller in Beverly Hills, and Saks and Neiman's are there as well.

[quote]Washington, DC: Woodward & Lothrop, Hecht’s, and of course Sears.

You forgot Garfinckel's. And Saks and Neiman's --depending on when you were there.

Sacramento: Weinstock's (flagship store)--they actually had two large stores three blocks apart (one had been Hale's.) Macy's.and Liberty House. JCPenney, Sears, Mervyn's. Later Gottschalk's.

R13 I grew up in Oak Park, and Field's was the gold standard for us--Wieboldt's for everyday clothes, Sears and, for part of my childhood, Montgomery Ward's for hardware and appliances. Do you remember when Lytton's had a glass case with monkeys to keep kids entertained while moms shopped. What were we/they thinking? Wouldn't happen today--both because of animal cruelty and because parents wouldn't park their kids on their own while they shopped. Then, Oak Brook and Yorktown and, later, Woodfield Malls made local branches of stores hard to sustain.

Hess Brothers in Allentown PA!

Reno - Grey Reid (a local), Macys, Weinstocks, Joseph Magnin, and ubiquitous Sears, Penneys, and Wards.

Houston

Besides the solidly middle-class Foley's and Joske's, there were the upscale Sakowitz and Neiman Marcus. Another exclusive store was Frost Bros.

All but NM are long gone.

Rockford, Illinois when it still had a downtown. D.J. Stewart. Chas V. Weise, Carson Pirie Scott, JC Penney, Sears, Rockford Dry Goods.

[quote]Edergays

What are they-- queens who worship Linda Eder?

Plainview Long Island A&S

Macys

Sears

Gertz

Burger-Phillips

Loveman's

Pizitz

Parisian

Sakowitz in Houston

Columbus - Lazarus Cincinnati - Shillito's Dayton - Rike's, The Metropolitan

I didn't see anyone mention this one, so I'll do it now: Bamberger's. My Hyacinth-clone great aunt was reported to have actually referred to Bambearzhay (long before Tar-zhay became a "thing").

Cleveland

Higbee's

Halle's (Halle Berry was named after this store)

The May Co.

The upscale department store in North Carolina was Montaldo's, with branches in Charlotte, Greensboro, Winston-Salem and Raleigh. Women would drive hours to shop and get their hair done.

Bambergers - Newark, NJ

Don't forget Gertz in Jamaica and Sloans, r17

In Rochester, NY we had the big 3, all special and unique and all very much a part of the Rochester culture. All now gone. B. Forman Co. McCurdy and Company (McCurdy's) and the legendary Sibley, Lindsay and Curr (Sibley's) which is now Macy's in the suburban mall locations. The downtown stores are all gone.

Kresge's, Grants, McCrory's, American Discount, Barkers, Two Guys, Bradlees, Caldors, Zayres , Ames, Railroad Salvage, and a couple of weird odd job lot type places. It was the 1970s. It sucked.

I miss the incredible blueberry muffins only available at Jordan Marsh's downtown Boston flagship. It's such a random thing for a department store to do but their delicious warm blueberry muffins displayed in gingham lined wicker baskets were legendary. How do you create something so delicious?

In Omaha, we had Brandeis, which was bought out by Younkers in the '80s (also now defunct). Richman Gordman was another local chain before they morphed into Gordmans.

Not really an elder, as I'm an older millennial but I remember these stores, some sadly only vaguely. Augusta, GA

Local stores J.B. White's (mid market), now Dillards, many of us in the community still mourn the loss of "our store." DL fave Mamie Eisenhower shopped here a lot when she and Ike were in town visiting Augusta National. Cullum's (upscale) Ruben's (downscale), the only one still in operation and still downtown.

Regional Belk, actually Belk-Howard, but unlike other Belk partnerships they just used the Belk's name. Davidson's, now Macy's :( Rich's, now very sadly Macy's :(

National Sears J.C. Penney Montgomery Wards

Doe no one remember this?

R60 I remember Gayfers only because it was part of Mercantile Stores, the same as J.B. Whites, see R59. Whenever you got a gift certificate or charge card from J.B. Whites it would have the logos of all the other Mercantile Stores on the back, where you could also use them.

We had Kaufmann's, Horne's and Gimbels.

For a time in the little suburb near where I grew up, there was a store called Troutman's. It was mostly clothing and was in a two story building with a nice man operating the elevator.

When I went to Grandma's house, there was Glosser Brothers* and Penn-Traffic. I don't remember PT so well but went to Glossers several times w/Grandma.

(*Glosser Bros had a 70s/80s outlet that tried to compete with Kmart and the like called Gee Bees. The Glosser family - Jewish immigrants from Belarus - are the ancestors of yes, Stephen fucking Miller. I shit you not.)

[quote] Marshall Field’s in Oak Park, IL already mentioned up thread. It closed when I was a kid, and I remember thinking it was a loss for the community. A shoe store and then Borders went in a couple years later. That’s now long gone too.

I had no idea that was a Field's! That building has sat empty for so long, such a shame.

And now the Harlem/North Sears is closed, too.

We drove to Dallas to shop at Neiman's twice a year. 5 school day outfits and two Sunday. Fall and Summer. Our hometown department store was Mayer Schmitz. It had one of those pneumatic tube things that the clerks put the money in, and it zipped away to Mr Mayer or Mr Schmitz's office and zipped back with a receipt in it.

SFV: Bullock's, Broadway, Robinsons-May, JC Penney, Sears, Mervyns, Buffums, Ohrbach's, I. Magnin, Macy's, Bloomingdale's, Fedco, Gemco, Zody's, K-Mart

What were the big Cleveland stores?

I seem to remember a big one downtown that has since closed.....was that Dillards or was there others?

Addendum to R3:

San Francisco: I Magnin, J Magnin, Ranshohoff's, Emporium-Capwell, Roos Brothers

Growing up in Iowa, it was all about Younkers.

Field.'s and Carson's. I loved them.

Where I lived we had Howland's which later became Steinbach's. We also had Loehmann's. Caldor and Bradlees for discount stores.

For big shopping you went into Stamford. Macy's, JC Penney(later Filene's), Saks, Sage Allen. Trumbull had Reed's(later Jordan Marsh) and G. Fox. Danbury had Sears. I think we went into The Bronx for Alexander's.

Philadelphia -

John Wanamaker

Strawbridge & Clothier

Most of my California stores have been mentioned. My personal favorite of the major ones was Bullock's in Westwood. We'd also shop at Hensheys department store in Santa Monica where we lived, but they only had two stores in the area, so not major. But it was a six story building in the heart of downtown and it had two annexes extending from it, so it dominated the retail business district.

When I lived in Portland, the big one was Meier & Frank. (Photo)

Indianapolis:

LS Ayers, Wm. H. Block, and Wasson’s

The Cleveland stores

Higbee's -- the big local - the downtown flagship was where A Christmas Story was filmed

May co. - 500 feet away from Higbee's on the other corner of public square- the second May Co. after the flagship in Colorado..

Halle Bros - the upscale local -

Sterling Lindner Davis. (At one time all separate stores) its claim to fame is that it had the largest indoor Christmas tree in America. It had a 6 story atrium..

Bonwit Teller, Saks, Horne"s, Nordstrom, Penney's, Sears, and the bargain boys - Zayre, Giant Tiger, Gold Circle, Atlantic- Spartan.

JB Ivey and Company Belk

sears roebuck!

red goose shoes, pull the goose head and get a gift

tarvers tot n teen (kids trendy clothes)

Olga's (moms cute sundresses)

Goldstein Miguel (ev thing, clothes)

shopping centers were the rage, god the sixtys were fab!

the above stores were n Waco texas, at one time a big thriving city, till the air force base left. went from 200000 to 100000

Hess Brothers (Hess's) Allentown, Pennsylvania

Deisroth's Hazleton

Fowler, Dick, and Walker (The Boston Store) Wilkes-Barre

Pomeroy's Pottsville

[quote]In Omaha, we had Brandeis, which was bought out by Younkers in the '80s (also now defunct).

Owned by Emil Brandeis, 48 year old confirmed bachelor who was a victim of the Titanic disaster.

fun thread, thx op!

monkey wards (as my granny called it) Montgomery wards !

the Galleria

The Globe-Scranton Boscov's-Wilkes-Barre

R74 Thank you, I think Higbee's was the one I was thinking of.....I know a lot of locals remembered Halle too.

In Rock Island, Illinois it was McCabe’s Department Store and Harry Mosenfelder for men’s clothes.

This thread is great

But also makes me a bit sad, because we have lost so much of this. Now every place has a Kohl's and a Wal-mart and seldom, if ever, has more than that.

So great that even smallish towns of 25K or so had their own stores in the 60s and 70s.

We used to walk to Honest Ed's.

In Winnipeg the two stores were Eaton's where I worked as a stock boy and The Hudson's Bay Co. I don't live there now but I know that the Eaton's store was demolished to make way for an arena. Likely "The Bay" is still standing and still in operation. Eaton's had beautiful Christmas themed window displays.

[quote] Addendum to [R3]: San Francisco: I Magnin, J Magnin, Ranshohoff's, Emporium-Capwell, Roos Brothers

I don't think of the Magnins or Ransohoff's as department stores. And "Roos Brothers" was Roos-Atkins (1957) long before the Emporium became Emporium-Capwell (i.e., they never co-existed under those names.) And I did mention The Emporium in my original post.

Roos-Atkins, along with Grodins and Hastings, was a specialty clothing store--not a department store.

[quote]SFV: Bullock's, Broadway, Robinsons-May, JC Penney, Sears, Mervyns, Buffums, Ohrbach's, I. Magnin, Macy's, Bloomingdale's, Fedco, Gemco, Zody's, K-Mart

I think your timeline is off. Ohrbach's, Gemco, and Zody's were gone before Robinson's and the May Company became Robinsons-May and Bloomingdale's showed up in California.

Few things make me sadder than the demise of Burdines.

Rich’s Davison’s Saks Lord & Taylor Neiman-Marcus J.P. Allen

R1. My family had a home in Orlando (Bay Hill) in the 70’s and 80’s. I lived up north but would visit for the holidays. I remember Colonial Mall where I bought my gay porn and Jacobsen in Winter Park. Also Altamonte Mall. Our area were basically still orange groves.

[quote] Davidson's, now Macy's

Sorry, I meant Davison's. I always make that mistake, because so many people around me always mispronounced it as Davidson's.

Youngstown, OH

- Strouss

- Hills

- McKelvey's

r41! Lived nearby from 1950s. Can you believe I never ate in the restaurant, let alone had a piece of that famous strawberry pie?! My mother and I would always go to the Look Diner instead.

Hess Bros. > Hess's > Bon-Ton > Gone, Baby, Gone.

Small town in OK where we just had Sears, Montgomery Ward and JC Penney. There were a couple of small family owned clothing stores. Driving to Dallas to shop was always a treat.

Oleson's Mercantile.

Sucked but good for shoplifting.

The Outlet in Rhode Island

The Gay Blade in Oregon

My favorite, Mervyn's in California

Bullocks Wilshire. The quintessential luxury store in LA, before Beverly Hills became a shopping mecca. Housed in a glorious Art Deco building , it had designer salons where models showed off the latest fashions (heaven forbid you should swipe through racks of dresses that other people have touched!), a fur salon (as well as fur storage), elevators with real people operating them (the lever that rotated from left to right) and a magnificent tea room on the top floor where models would walk through the room periodically and you could ask them all about what they were wearing (and the frozen fruit salad - yum!). There was a Steuben room where they displayed the latest and finest in art glass, and another room that showcased silver; they were like going to a museum! Going shopping at Bullocks Wilshire was always a special treat, wearing your best clothes, and gloves.

Sadly they closed in 1986, but the building has been preserved, thank goodness. It's a Law School now, I believe.

Louisville in the 70s and early 80s had Stewart’s, Bacon’s, Shillito’s and Ben Snyder’s. Stewart’s was the only one still downtown and the most prestigious. We mostly shopped at Shillito’s and Bacon’s (part of the Merchantile group mentioned above). Shillito’s had a small restaurant on the top floor. Later Lazarus took that over before becoming Macy’s. The other stores by the late 80s became L.S. Ayres, Hess’s, and Dillard’s in quick succession.

[quote] Hills

Not a fine department store, for sure. LOL

r71 They were certainly the top 2, and in that order. I'll be going to the Wanamaker Building, which Macy now owns, for their renowned and utterly nostalgic Christmas Light Show, next week. I truly miss the restaurants in both stores, The Crystal Room at Wanny's, and S&C's Corinthian Room. There were a few others stores(all defunct now), in no particular order:

Gimbel's, which bailed on Philadelphia in the 70's, IIRC Always snapping at Wanamaker's heels, but making no headway.

Lits Brothers("Hats Trimmed, Free of Charge," that small sign is still on the building)

Snellenberg's. When they folded, the first incarnation of Philadelphia Community College took over the property. It was jokingly referred to as "The University of Snellenberg." The students LOVED the escalators.

The Blum Store, everything for m'lady. I will occasionally see an ancient dowager, with one of their iconic pink and black shopping bags.

At Wanamaker's, and Saks, and klein's, a lesson I've been taught--you can't get alterations on a dress you haven't bought.

Cunts R Us.

In the Twin Cities we had Dayton's, Donaldson's & Powers plus a couple of smaller, high end stores like Harold & Bjorkman. What was left of Donaldson's and Power's eventually ended up as Carson Pirie Scott stores and then vanished. The late 80's brought Macy's, Bloomingdale's, Nordstrom, Saks and Neiman Marcus. Dayton's renamed themselves Marshall Field after parent Target Corp. bought that chain - and through a series of sales & buyouts became Macy's stores. Now the market is pretty much down to Macy's & Nordstrom in the suburbs and a newly opened von Maur just north of St Paul.

Oh, I loved Bonwit Teller. Was living in NYC when it closed. Stood in line for the closing sale of the original Abercrombie and Fitch. I never got to see Best & Co, which my Texas grandmother spoke of as if it were the Holy Grail. She was a dyed in the wool Neiman Marcus patron and would write thank you letters to Stanley Marcus if there was something particular she really liked. As if he were her personal friend which he was not.

R106 Did he ever write back?

Yeah. He sent dick pix.

Like R21 and R49, in Cincinnati, we had Shillito's, McAlpin's, Mabley and Carew, and Pogue's. I get confused about several of the buildings, now, but I think most of them are still in use, just not as department stores. I know the Shillito's building still stands, as does the McAlpin's building: I think they've been converted into condos. And, of course, Pogue's was located in the Carew Tower, which used to be the tallest building in Cincinnati. The Carew Tower arcade connects the Netherland Hilton with several small shops, and Pogue's used to be located on both sides of the arcade, connected by 'The Ice Cream Bridge', which housed a small restaurant (very good food). I used to have lunch there when I worked at the P&G main offices downtown. You can see the bridge spanning the arcade, right behind the elaborate Art Deco frieze. The lobby and the Palm Room in the Netherland Hilton are Art Deco masterpieces.

And Hathaway's Dinner in the Carew Tower arcade is still open.

Woodward & Lothrop's flagship store in downtown DC in 1957. Woodie's was a local upper-middle-market chain; the downtown store was a landmark. Going there was an occasion. When the stores closed in the 1990s, it was like a death in family for many Washingtonians.

Look how nicely dressed everyone is.

El Corte Ingles

Small town in NorCal here (or it was when I was a kid). We had Gottschalk's, Weinstock's, Montgomery Ward, Sears, JC Penney, Ardan's, and Mervyns. In the mid-80s we finally got a Macy's, which is still there, along with the JC Penney. Before Macy's, Gottschalk's, Weinstock's and Ardan's were the most upscale. But we lived so near SF that anyone who needed serious upscale just went to the city.

Any Long Islanders remember The Great Neck Department Store? I got my first suit there!

In Buffalo we had

AM&As

The Sample

Hens and Kelly

LL Berger

Sattlers

Jenss

Probably more I can’t remember

Macy's (or its parent company) has killed so many more worthwhile places.

In Pittsburgh it all but killed Kaufmann's, the only place in the city worth going to, if you ask me.

r113 I'm trying to figure out where you are ... I'm thinking Santa Rosa.

" I want that silly bastard to send that furniture back to Jordan Marsh".. John F Kennedy

Thanks, R118.

Cleveland also had Bailey's (low end) and Taylor's (similar to Higbee's). There was a Bonwit-Teller downtown and Best & Co in Cleveland Heights.

My hometown (Ferndale, WA) was too small for department stores.

The big hub just south of us (Bellingham, WA), had The Bon Marche in the downtown area before it moved to Bellis Fair (the mall that was erected in 1988 or so). I loved the old Bon Marche. It had multiple levels with escalators and a cafe mezzanine. Classic. Like something out of the film Carol. Christmas, of course, was the best time. I would also do all my pre-school-year clothes shopping there with my mother. Nice memories. We also had a Sears Roebuck that was a stand-alone building on the outskirts of the downtown centre. They did photographs there like in the film The Master. I caught a brief tail-end of an era that was disappearing. I think we also had a JC Penny (which transferred to the mall) and a Mervyns.

We had Sears, Montgomery Ward, Orbach's, Robinson's, May Company, and The Broadway. Also Buffums in Palos Verdes and later came Nordstrom in Redondo Beach. In the 90s a Bloomingdales opened in Fashion Island, Newport Beach. Then Robinson's and May merged to become Robinson's May which was bought out by Macy's. The Broadway and Montgomery Ward, defunct.

Some malls had JC Penney and when I was very young, Woolworth stores were in bad neighborhoods.

I was raised in Paris, France, in the 70's, so les galeries lafayettes, le bon marché, le printemps, le bazar de l'hôtel de ville. Jealous, bitches ?

When I was a little kid, my home town didn't even have a stop light. The closest department store was an Ames department store. But we would drive all the way to the Salisbury Mall to go to Hecht's, Sears, and Hutzler's (which I, of course, pronounced as "hustlers"). The other direction had a J. C. Penney, Woolworth's, and (eventually—when the new mall opened) a Boscov's.

I previously mentioned the more upscale stores in Chicago like Field's, and Carson's, but I also really do miss the classic art deco Sears Roebuck store that closed a few years ago at the intersection of Irving Park, Cicero, and Milwaukee Avenues. We often went there, and the building is in fact an Art Deco masterpiece. Sears website used to have a page devoted to it. When we were kids, it was a nice place to explore, and before a renovation brought an addition to the north side of the store, there was a really interesting Sears Service Station also in matching Art Deco. There was a Hillman's grocery store and cafeteria in the basement, later turned into the hardware department, but the most haunting thing about the store was the scent of fresh roasting nuts from the huge candy department on the first floor, that and it chimes ringing with various codes to summon various employees.

[quote] My hometown (Ferndale, WA) was too small for department stores.

Dang how small was it? Here in the South every small town had 2 or more small-town department stores downtown, usually ran by a Jewish family, until at least the early 1990s.

GFox

St. Louis:

Stix, Baer & Fuller Famous-Barr

R124 Pennsylvania?

My Mom shopped at Bullock's department store, in the glamorous Bullock's Fashion Square in Santa Ana, California. The Bullock's store was a gigantic 3-floor, 336,000 sqare foot showplace that was almost a full city in itself. The mall also had an i. magnum department store, a bunch of specialty shops abd 400 trees. In recent years the property has been expanded and rebranded as "MainPlace Santa Ana." The huge former Bullock's building is now a Macy's.

[quote]The mall also had an i. magnum department store

Oh, dear!

Parker's and Petersen's, Davenport, Iowa

I miss diners that look like R110.

Oh, the glamour of shopping in those days!

Today

Surprising number of old queens from Allentown on here...

As a lower, LOWER middle-class gayling I was subjected to Leh's (and Sears) much more often than Hess's. Also for a brief moment - Zollinger-Harned's.

I grew up in the 70s in a suburban NYC town with no department store or children's clothing store. The closest department stores were a 20 minute drive away. The only department stores I remember going to were Alexanders and B. Altman. My mother would take my sisters shopping and I'd tag along for the lunch we'd have at the Charleston Garden at B. Altman. I would always get a pink lemonade, grilled cheese sandwich and a brownie a la mode for dessert. My mother ordered my clothes from the Sears Catalog until I was in high school and wanted to pick them out myself. By then we had a mall with A&S, Chess King, Benneton, and all those awful 80s stores.

Born and raised in New York City. We went to B. Altman's (Altman's for short), Lord & Taylor, and Saks. Macy's was considered déclassé. It reinvented itself in the mid to late 1980s. Bloomingdale's was not big until the late 70s. Barney's was a Cheap Charlie's kind of store.

There used to be a Gimbels on 86th and Lexington. I can remember leafing through "The Joy of Sex" in their Book Department in high school.

Not sure if it's been posted already but there is some interesting history at the link. Looks like the blog is no longer active but the archives are an interesting read.

Erie PA:

The Boston Store (My grandmother worked there for many years!), See picture below.

Carlisle's

Mason's was closer to K-Mart.

This was the place to go to sit on Santa's lap!

New Orleans: D. H. Holmes, Godchaux's, Maison Blanche, Krauss

That looks nice, R140.

I lived in Erie for a few years in the 90s and walked by the Boston Store building on State (6th or 7th ish?) but it had been long closed by then. I heard they were making it into apartments?

New York: Altman's, Gimbels, Saks (my father always bought gifts for my mother for Christmas and her birthday at Saks), Bonwit Teller (the Orange Cheeto bought the building and ripped it down to build a Trump tower), and Wanamaker's.

A few times a year we'd go over to Brooklyn to Abraham & Straus (only ONE "s" at the end people). There was a small branch in midtown Manhattan, but I don't ever remember being in there.

How may I be of assistance to you today, Madam?

5th avenue in Clinton, Iowa in the sixties: Van Allen’s, local department store. Peterson Harned Von Maur, also local. Kline’s, Boegel’s, Sears, Penney’s, Woolworth, W.T. Grant, S.S. Kresge, Montgomery Ward, many more: small city, big on stores.

Richmond, VA: Thalheimer’s and Miller and Rhodes

r51

Did you live in Shaker Heights?

R128: you forgot Scruggs, Vandervoort & Barney. At its peak, it had stores downtown at 9th and Olive, Clayton on Forsythe Avenue and Hanley Road, Crestwood Plaza, and Northwest Plaza. A fifth store was in the works across the street from the Riverroads Mall when the chain shut down..The downtown store was the first to close, the rest closed by 1970.

Back in the 1930's, there was another chain called Nugents. In addition to the downtown store at Broadway and Washington, they had branch stores before Famous-Barr, Stix and Vandervoorts. One was the uptown store at Olive Street and Vandeventer Avemie, another was the suburban store in Wellston at Easton and Hodiamont Avenues.

^. How do you remember all this shit?

Close, R129. Delaware. But slower, lower Delaware.

[quote]Richmond, VA: Thalheimer’s and Miller and Rhodes

RHOADS

R141 I remember in the early 1990s Mercantile Stores bought Maison Blanche and started selling Mr. Bingle during the Christmas season at out local, J.B. White's. I loved him, but sadly we only got him for a few years before Dillards destroyed everything. There are claims that they still sell Mr. Bingle merchandise, but I've never seen it in my local Dillards.

Farm and Fleet!

Olsen's Mercantile. Walnut Grove.

We always looked forward to the year end BOGO sale of Baby Battering Rams and Shit-bras.

Tucson:

Jacome’s Levy’s Steinfeld’s

All, plus Sears, Wards, and Penney’s were downtown through the 60’s. Jacome’s and Penney’s closed downtown shortly after I moved there in 1977. Jacome’s has no other locations, so that was it for them. Levy’s and Steinfeld’s already had mall locations. Levy’s became Sanger-Harris, then Foley’s, then Macy’s. Steinfeld’s folded in the early 80’s.

Never downtown but a big deal when it opened it’s first mall location in Tucson in 1978 was Goldwater’s, which was founded by the family of the arch-conservative Arizona senator Barry Goldwater. That store became Broadway Southwest eventually, which itself folded.

R147 Cleveland Heights @ Fairmount and Lee area

Fort Worth:

Leonard's

Monnig's

Stripling's

Cox's

B. Altman seems like it was quite a place.

The comments on this article from former employees and shoppers are gold.

Cool piece about how the Altman Foundation is still active in NYC.

[quote]The Altman Foundation has given away $235 million since the store closed, said Jane B. O’Connell, the foundation’s president since 1995.

The B. Altman atrium in NYC.

Fort Worth:

Monnig's (the classy one)

Leonard's (later Dillard's, maybe a tad less upscale than Dillard's)

Stripling's (mature clientele but my mom's favorite)

Cox's (same, mom also liked)

Stripling's and Cox's merged in the 70s before closing maybe in the early 90s. NM and Sanger-Harris (later Foley's, then Macy's) arrived in the 70s.

Buffalo, NY in the '70s/'80s: My mom's regional favorites were AM&A's (which she and my relatives always pronounced like "mayonnaise" with the "m" and first "a" inverted) and Beir's.

Almost all of my school clothes came from JCPenney and Sears, mostly the catalogs.

When Rainbow Centre (note the Canadian spelling; it was right on the border) opened in '82, we went there a lot because it was much-hyped and had a botanical garden, big glass elevator and fountains.

It was there that I discovered the Gap, became gay, and then there was no more JCPenney and Sears for me.

R158, the service at Altman's was unbelievable, and the same was true in most department stores. Today in department stores, the salespeople are there to ring up your items on the cash register. Nordstrom still has great service, but it is gone from the vast majority of other stores.

R162 The Gap made you gay? You Canadians are easy.

San Francisco 1950s - 1970s:

The City of Paris on Union Square, famous for it's opulent Christmas Tree in its elegant rotunda

The White House - long gone, we'd see Santa there

The Emporium - also long gone, my first job out of college was in the ad dept. They had roof rides at Christmas and opulent Christmas displays. A great old store.

I. Magnin - elegant

J. Magnin - quality but trendier than I. Magnin

Saks Fifth Avenue - expensive but we shopped there for special occasions

Roos Brothers - high quality men's clothing

H. Liebes - Decent but not as fancy as I and J.

Gumps - not quite a regular department store but a purveyor of luxury goods. They closed a couple of years ago. A wonderful store specializing in the art of fabulous things.

I shall grammar police myself. Error alert in the second line. Can you spot it?

r156

I still get Mitchell’s Chocolates sent via FedEx....

[quote]The Gap made you gay? You Canadians are easy.

It was actually most likely Sam Jones in Flash Gordon.

{quote]Edergays

Is that like Lizafags?

R168 Sam Jones made a lot us gay.

[quote] The City of Paris on Union Square, famous for it's opulent Christmas Tree in its elegant rotunda

Tsk, Tsk, R165! It's not okay to make mistakes with the possessive.

Could you imagine a group of queens shopping and witness this? Bette would have gotten a round of applause for telling off these two old frau's. Same with Joan in "The Women" insulting Rosalind Russell and Phyllis Povah.

So right you are, R172. But We Queens would also be Margaret Elliott (but pronounced Margot!).

Thanks for posting that clip, R172, it's fabulous! I must see that film.

(One can't talk about the loss of NYC department stores without talking about the lost of the garment district in Manhattan, the factories that made 70% of America's clothes.)

I think that's like when Lillian Hellman had to work at a grocery store because she lost all of her money to lawyers during the communist witch trials.

R175 or the loss of the textile mills of New England and the Southeast which produced the fabrics that the garment district used. I grew up wanting to work in the New York office of my local textile company. Then it was sold and that dream was gone.

R177, thank you for the response! I didn't know that. So where did the mills go? Also overseas?

My grandmother worked in the garment district as a seamstress from the 1950s-1970s.

R178 oversees. Except for Millikan. The man that owned them was a major Republican, but the non free trade type. Sadly, his children are less committed to the US and have started opening overseas mills. One thing I have to say in favor of Trump AND Bernie is that they are against free trade. Free trade has ruined the American working and lower middle class more than anything.

All of them. Center of the Universe baby.

When we lived in Longmeadow, Massachusetts my mother went to a Springfield store with two or three names. Anyone remember it?

New Jersey - Sterns, Steinbacks and Two Guys (anyone?)

R181 Forbes and Wallace

Boston: Jordan Marsh, Filene's, R.H. Stearns, Gilchrist's, Raymond's (all within 1000 feet of each other in or near what is now called Downtown Crossing) and then either Bailey's for a sundae, Dini's or Warmuth's for lunch, or the Parker House, Locke-Ober, or the Marliave for dinner.

Quincy: Remick's (Lee Remick's father owned it)

Waltham: Grover Cronin

Worcester: Denholm and Elliot

r177, the irony is that several of the abandoned textile mills are now outlet malls, selling cheap shit made in China.

1960's - "The Hub" of Stubenville, Ohio

R182

Two Guys, indeed! They later became White Modell, which my mother referred to as White Modess. We went to East Hanover or Morris Plains. They weren't a department store though - more like a K Mart.

R185 Thankfully, that hasn't happened where I live. The ones that have been repurposed, have been made into apartments or one, into a medical office building.

Love this thread!

Hess's

blowing and fucking cock in the huge basement toilet at the Emporioum in Frisco....Saks 5th ave was good too, the big for retarded folks stalls were fab for fucking for days.

and was a basement toilet at union square where classy businessmen would go down and sniff/suk homeless young boys … yes!

The 2 big local stores in Atlanta were Rich's & Davison's.

There's a nice article about Burdines in Miami and Palm Beach. The preview link will not post for whatever reason, just copy and paste this title:

We miss you, Burdines. Here’s a look back at our love affair with the Florida store

Houston in the 60s: Foley's, Joske's, Sakowitz, Battelstein's. Foley's was truly a department store back then: fabrics, books, and records along with clothes and household items. Sakowitz was for special presents, especially father's day.

The Galleria opened in 1970. I can't remember whether we had Neiman-Marcus down here before the Galleria.

Joske's had fabulous end-of-month sales. I worked there as a teenager on the third floor. We could hear the doors open and the sale shoppers head for the escalators on those days.

I still miss Sakowitz.

Bambergers

Lord and Taylor

Gimbels

Hahnes

We need a "God, I hate Federated Department Stores for buying all the local department stores and turning them in shitty Macy's which are eventually closed because Macy's sucks" thread.

Also, a second thread, "I hate Federated for destroying Burdines"

The flagship L.S. Ayres & Co. store in downtown Indianapolis was a beautiful to visit. Even if it was in a third-rate backwater, they achieved some real elegance in that store.

All gone.

In the metro Detroit area of my childhood, Hudson’s was the major local department store brand. As a young kid, we would go to the flagship store in downtown Detroit at Christmas, one of the few forays my racist family would make across the city line. Of course, there were also the national chains of Sears, JC Penney, Montgomery Ward, and Korvette’s. Jacobsen’s was a local higher end department store with too high a price point for my family (and no Orange Julius nearby). In college in Ann Arbor, there was also a Lord & Taylor.

I never knew there were this many department stores all operating at the same time.

Remember the weird New England store Porteous. It was almost spooky. Like it had the bones of a major department store, but not the life-blood.

R200 Every metro city had at least one local, family owned department store that probably started in the late 19th or early 20th century. And, really large cities would have 2 or 3 and they'd open branches in smaller big cities in their region.

R202, thank you for your response. Our malls are so horrible now.

Harris’, Robinson’s, I. Magnin, Joseph Magnin, Buffum’s, Bullock’s, Saks, Nordstrom’s, Bon Marché, Ohrbach’s

R200, and the largest metro areas would have local department stores in the lower, middle and upper segments of the market, although the lower segment was (at least in the DC area) dominated by Sears and Montgomery Ward. The lowest end of the market were the dime stores, but a lot those were national chains like Woolworth's and McCrory's.

In DC, we also had local drug store chains - the biggest was People's Drug Stores - and a local hardware/lumber yard chain, Hechinger's. There were also lots of neighborhood drug and hardware stores. All of these are gone, baby, gone.

Liberty House. Honolulu, Hawaii.

Southern California: Early 1970's-Mid 1990's *The Broadway *Buffums *Robinson's *Bullock's *May Company

in Denver, it was the Denver Dry Goods and May D&F. The Denver was part of Associated Dry Goods which also owned Lord & Taylor. We also had Joseph magnin which was the younger hipper cousin of I magnin. My cousin worked as a buyer for Neusteters which was Denver's version of Bonwit Teller. The third generation of boys that managed the store in the late 1970s ran it into the ground. My cousin was tasked with closing out one of the branch stores and let all of us know that she was marking everything down to $5. A bunch of us showed up and bought a truckload worth of Perry Ellis and other mid-level designers things. Denver also had a chain called Fashion Bar. The Main Street in downtown Denver is now a Haven for the homeless.

One funny thing ... the old Neusteters store became Denver's version of rental lofts. So I Airbnb an apartment there about 10 years ago when my cousin was in town so that she could stay in the space that was her old office. She really enjoyed that. But she was glad to get out of Denver.

One not funny thing is I used to see local fashion maven ... and yes the standards were low there, Jo Farrell at some of these stores back in the day. Farrell is one of the model agency heads who fed women to Bill Cosby.

The Paris Fair - Hood River, Oregon

omg Houston in the sixtys/seventys:::::good times::::marys.

R200, the department stores were as explained by R202. These retail establishments were of long standing and they contributed majorly to the identity of the various localities and regions of the U.S. It was part of the fun of visiting another city to sample its best department stores. Some things were the same as the store in your area, but other things were going to be different. People came to Chicago to go specifically to Marshall Fields. If they can stay in Gary, Indiana, and go to Macy's... why bother with Chicago? Parce that out across the entire country. Going to Macy's was once a choice. Now, from time to time, it's nothing more than an unavoidable burden.

The people running Federated Stores, the holding company that bought and sold a variety of these departement stores throughout the 20th Century, were some of the stupidest people on earth. "Market Forces" are always present, but how one reacts to them can vary. The Federated people destroyed something that was long at the heart of cities all over the nation. Replacing it all with the name "Macy's" was a disaster for us all.

John Wanamaker was another fabulous chain that was run into the ground by the founder's family, who treated it like an ATM machine.

A friend of mine used to work at the main store at 13th and Market. Wanamaker family members would routinely pull up to the store with suitcases and haul out bagfuls of cash. When store managers objected, they would just say "have a sale" to raise more cash for them to loot.

Gimbels and Boston Store - Milwaukee Oh, and THREE SISTERS for the ladies.

There were at least three distinct tiers in Southern California, and more stores in each than I'm listing here.

Top: I. Magnin, Bullock's, J.W. Robinson Middle: The Broadway, May Company Low: Sears, J.C. Penney

Woolworths was the big store where I grew up.

I don't think any exist any more.

Woolco is gone as well, r215. My mother once bought my sister a cotton summer dress there. She was a good enough seamstress to fit the dress so it didn't look cheap. Grant's is gone and TG&Y. I guess Walmart and Target fill the gaps for low-end department stores these days. But that dress from Woolco from the late 60s was not flimsy, like the clothes you'll find at Walmart now.

Wanna learn something weird? Many malls in Hawaii now host non-denomination CHURCHES in shopping centers! A lot of New Hope churches have taken the place of Tower Records in Kahala and a Times Market in Aina Haina. I guess if you're too poor to shop at any store, well then you can pop in next door and pray for better luck next time.

Macy's (northern california).

R218, pretty much. I remember other stores but those were places my mom went.

Paterson, New Jersey - Quackenbush and Meyers Brothers.

Edergays--fans of the Streisand-wannabe, ex-Mrs. Frank Wildhorn?