We had a TG&Y up the street from us when I was growing up (mid 70s, southern California). I never knew what it stood for either (and after seeing the post saying what it did stand for it doesn’t look familiar, which means I probably didn’t just know at one point and forget).
I loved that store. I called it “TG’s” and my mother called it “the five and ten,” which always mystified me because very little there was a nickel or a dime. They had a little bit of everything, and in combination with the Rexall Drug that was in the same little strip mall, it was enough to keep a kid amused for many hours. They did have a big fabric department, I remember that, and I think they had (small) pets.
They disappeared sometime in the late 70s and became a Coast to Coast Hardware store (where I worked for awhile as a teenager). The Rexall is still there, I think, though it might have changed names.
The old Kresge’s at 69th and Chestnut (just outside of Philly in Upper Darby at the top of the hill) used to sell the old, rock hard Bazooka gum. They had a real, wooden barrel they kept full of the stuff. 1 cent a piece.
For a nickel, you were allowed to reach in with one hand and, in a single try, grab as much as you could. The counter man, would ask you to shake your hand before you removed it from the barrel. He’d then he’d give you a bag to put your handful in.
For two pieces of gum, my ham-fisted brother Greg would walk to Kresge’s and buy the gum for you! He was always good for 12-15 pieces.
I remember going into Woolworth’s with my mom or aunt as a child to buy school supplies, snacks and little toys. (That’s what I looked at anyway, I don’t remember the stuff they got.) The store always had a smell to it that I can’t describe; it wasn’t good or bad, just unique. I always wanted to sit down at the counter and get a pop from their fountain, but we were always “in a hurry.” Alas, Woolworth’s closed when I was about 8.
My cousin Joe and I made “suicides” whenever we went to a fast food restaurant with a self-serve pop set-up. We’d mix whatever sounded good to us at the time. Sometimes we put all five or ten different sodas into our cups!
:: Wonders if she’s the youngest person to post in this thread…::
I had Fuzzy Wuzzy soap, too. They must have been pushing it during the commercials on Captain Kangaroo, or something. It also had some sort of little toy surprise embedded in it that I was wild to get to. My mom had to keep an eye on me to keep me from standing over the sink washing my hands like Lady MacBeth all day. (She also wouldn’t let us dig for the toys in the cereal box.)
Ours explicitly had “5 and 10” in big red letters on it. It certainly felt like a “five and ten”, as the Woolworth’s and Kresge’s did not (and that the K-Mart and Woolco were far too large to ever be).
We had lots of Woolworths, including one next to my doctor where I bought Classics Illustrated comics. One a bit closer had a lunch counter which was so appealing when you were a kid. Very kid friendly. I bought two turtles and a little plastic turtle bowl (with palm tree) in yet another one. They grew to be 10 inch long monsters,. eating hamburger in their aquarium. I bought them in junior high, and they lasted until I went to college, when my parents gave them to the zoo. (At least that was their story.)
There was one still operating in downtown Princeton until the early '90s, and even one in a mall (two stories!). We called them the five and dime. There was a similar store called Lampsons. Never any Kresge’s in my part of Queens.
Great link! I had no idea Ben Franklin’s were so widely distributed! I thought they were an East Cost, eeven Northeast phenomenon.
Sadly, there don’t seem to be any left in New Jersey (So the one I knew of at the Jersey shore musy now be closed, too).On the upside, there’s one not that far from me right now. Maybe I’ll stop in.
I need to go into a local Ben Franklin as well, just to say I’ve done so.
For those unfamilar with the story, Ben Franklin franchises were the base from which Sam Walton created Wal-Mart, which was originally pitched as a new discount-store version of the Ben Franklin concept. I think it’s kind of interesting that all of the surviving discount chains have their roots in older retail brands-- none were created from scratch. Then again, I find the history of retail in general absurdly fascinating.
Thanks to Mr. Moto on the mention of the GC Murphy chain being one of the victims of the Ames implosion; that sent me on one of those great, winding excursions through many websites, reading about Ames and all the chains it acquired. Neat stuff. There’s an interesting video on YouTube that has the final voice mail sent out by Ames home office regarding the store-shuttering procedures on the final day of the chain’s existence.
I see that the Benjamin Franklin in Quincy IL is still there. I remember that one from my college days in the early 70s. One of my dormmates bought a baby duck there one Easter and kept it in his room. Which was in violation of the “no pets” rule, but somehow he never got in trouble for it. The duck used to follow him around the dorm. I have no idea whatever happened to Carl’s Duck (as we all called it).
What does this mean? I’m not very familiar with the history of Wal-Mart, but pictures I’ve seen shows Walton’s as its own place, not as a Ben Franklin store. Do you mean that he started Wal-Marts out as Ben Franklin franchises, or merely that he used Ben Franklin’s as a business model? If the latter, I wouldn’t exactly say that Wal-Mart “had its roots” in Ben Franklin’s. Your Usage May Vary.
Sam started out by taking over some less-than-thriving Ben Franklin stores and turning them around, and then began opening his own stores which were named “Walton’s 5 and 10,” but were Franklin franshises as well. He began buying merchandise in bulk directly from suppliers, which ticked off the franchisors-- they made their money as middlemen between suppliers and franchisees. Wal-Mart was designed by Sam (and one unit opened as a proof-of-concept) as the discount arm of the Ben Franklin chain to take advantage of the profits in bulk sales-- and he hoped to just be a franchisee-- but the owners passed on the idea. The early Wal-Mart chain was a couple of discount stores and a bunch of Ben Franklin stores-- as the discount stores thrived, Sam was able to eventually leave the Franklin system; many of the early executives actually came over from the Ben Franklin chain, as they were familiar with Walton from being the largest Franklin franchisee, and thught he could make the discount stores work.