…that were killed by MACY’s? Macy’s bought up tons of smaller chains, and killed them off. I still remember the old JORDAN MARSH chain (was big in Boston/New England) with affection-it was a great store…now we have Macy’s-big formless warehouses. Could I buy the name and revive the Jordan Marsh name?
most of the names were bought as well.
sigh… i miss strawbridge and clothier.
they bought the strawbridge name but not clothier. i’m still hopefull.
Hudson’s, Crowley’s, Jacobson’s…the clothiers of my youth.
The Bon Marche & the “One Day Only Sale” commercial sung to the tune of the Banana Boat song?
Yeah, I miss it.
I still have suits in my closet from A & S (Abraham and Straus). What’s funny is that A&S essentially bought Macy’s – Macy’s being bankrupt in the early 1990s – but chose to use the Macy’s name on the merged chains due to its greater name recognition. But the flagship store in Brooklyn on Fulton St. went from something special to feeling like just another Macy’s.
I also miss Alexander’s; I still remember the big one on 59th St. across the street from Bloomingdale’s (now the site of a massive modern HQ building for Bloomberg), and how there was an exit/entrance to the subway from the basement. That was cool. And the big landmark Alexander’s in Rego Park in Queens that you could see from the highway, so much a local landmark that it is labeled on the back of Art Spiegelman’s book Maus to show where he grew up.
I didn’t know until recently that Macy’s had bought out Hudson’s. I still remember going to see the Christmas toy display they set up every year at their store in Detroit.
Actually, Marshall Field’s bought out Hudson’s, then Macy’s bought out Marshall Field’s.
I recall, when I was but a boy, going to the local department stores in Atlanta with my mother and spending most of the time just eyeing the candy counter. I think it was Rich’s (sp?). Most had them back then. Now none of the stores that I go into have these, although they still had them in the stores I frequented in Germany. So nostalgically, yes. That said, I’m not sure that if they still did exist they would receive my custom.
Big locally owned department stores would imply the continued existence of an urban middle-class culture, which started dying as soon as the first sidewalk-free suburb went up and the first TV aerials started to sprout. Some people kid themselves that that culture can be preserved or revived, but business knows better. We are consumers now, where we used to be shoppers, and marketers nowadays are way too smart to ever allow that to happen again.
I don’t miss them at all. I don’t like ANY kind of shopping. I’m not even all that thrilled about shopping on the internet, although I like it a thousand times more than going to a bricks and mortar store.
Clothes are the most utilitarian things I own. I buy them on the internet. I can’t remember the last article of clothing I bought at a “store.”
If every mall and department store were firebombed today I’d cheer.
Wow…you struck a nerve 
Yes, because each was slightly different from the rest. Strawbridge & Clothier, Gimbels, John Wanamaker (with eagle and massive organ-the store had the huge organ, not the eagle ;)), Pomeroy’s, Hess’. Variety and I think better service, as there was true competition.
I’m not a shopper, but I do have fond memories of some stores. FedMart, Gemco, Grant’s. (Well, not so much Grant’s. They didn’t have a very good toy collection.) I remember the cafeteria at Newberry’s when I was very young.
Technically, Federated Department Stores, Inc. (NYSE: FD) bought up all the regional stores, and decided to go with a national brand, Macys (although it still keeps Bloomingdales seperate). Less that a year ago, Federated changed it’s name to Macy’s Inc (NYSE: M). I put the blame on Federated only because it was only 14 years ago that Macys was bought into the Federated fold, and two years later Federated bought Jordan Marsh.
ETA: I remember the gnashing of teeth and wailing when Federated bought Macys. Previously, many local malls were anchored by a Macys and an A&S - suddenly they were one and the same and, especially pre-internet boom, shoppers worried about the lack of competition.
I was born and raised in Chicago with Marshall Field’s, and I remember all the fuss when it was announced that Macy’s would be changing all the Field’s stores in the Chicago area to Macy’s. During a recent visit I was told that Macy’s is not doing well because of the continuing resentment over the change.
I miss Woolworth’s. Ya gotta love a place where you can get a marginally tasty cheeseburger (at least you could keep an eye on the cook), then stroll twenty feet over and buy a parakeet.
Had you paid attention, you might have noticed there were a lot more parakeets before you ordered the cheeseburger…
They also had a good one with “I Fought the Bra and the Bra Won.”
Oh, absolutely-they bought out Kauffman’s not too long ago, which was pretty much a Pittsburgh landmark. And a damned good store, too.
Macy’s itself isn’t bad, though.
We’re currently not too fond of Macy’s up here in the frozen north. We’re Dayton’s people, which changed to Marshall Field’s (which we weathered okay). But now that it’s Macy’s, it’s not so good. They’ve recently laid off all Minneapolis staff (that’s 900 people out of work) and I hear they’re talking about not doing the Holidazzle parade anymore (which is a Minneapolis tradition that goes way back). Apparently they’re no longer going to do the big decorating of the downtown store’s 6th floor either (another longstanding Minneapolis tradition). It doesn’t look so good for them here - I know of lots of people who simply won’t shop there.
I, too, miss Kaufmann’s. Sort of. My local mall had Sears, JC Penny’s, Kaufmann’s, and Macy’s. In recent years the selection at Kaufmann’s had been lacking, and the tidiness of the stores were really slipping. I started to prefer Macy’s, as they had more clothes that weren’t either for teeny boppers or little old ladies. Their store was brighter, cleaner, easier to navigate and to shop in.
Since the big buyout, Macys moved into the old Kaufmann’s store. Now they’re in the dingier store and their selection seems to me to really have gone downhill. I can’t find a thing worth buying in there, and I’ve got one less store to shop from. Oh, they’re building a Nordstrom’s where the Macys used to be, but I really doubt I’ll be doing much shopping in there, as I am cheap.
I don’t really care what name is on the store front as long as I can easily find something I want to buy at a price I want to pay.