I liked Alexander’s, especially the Fordham Road, Bronx location.
Toy stores. Pretty much any toy stores. We even still have a Toys R Us locally, but it is a truly depressing, souless place that looks like it just survived a tornado and shares space with a Kids R Us, so it is half clothes.
I loved TG&Y and have similar fond memories of OTASCO.
I saw the thread title and immediately thought of CompUSA. They were always better for what I needed than Best Buy.
Another is the Discovery Store. It was a great little store in the mall. But it appears that they’ve pulled out to go online-only.
Piggybacking onto everyone who said Woolworth’s, and also the Ben Franklin stores. There aren’t any left in KS or MO, apparently.
Mall bookstores. I travel on business, and I used to kill an evening at the local mall by picking up a book after a long browse. The selections were only OK, but they were good enough to find an easy read for when I got back to the Marriot. Interestingly enough, now the best bookstores I can get to are at the airports.
Tower Records. Yeah, I use iTunes now. I miss flipping through Albums and later CDs, talking to the guys about “if I like this new REM band, who is else making music like that?”
REAL Army Surplus stores. There isn’t much surplus anymore, and now they just sell car camping gear plus a few old uniforms. Nothing that interesting, unlike the old days.
I miss a women’s clothing store – Lerner’s. The prices were good and they had clothes that an older woman could wear without feeling, um, old. Lots of cotton and cotton blends, no polyester. In the 80’s they stocked a simple gathered skirt in several colors, and blazers (remember blazers?), and basic shirts and blouses. I could always find something at Lerner’s.
Fit To A Tee, a local DC-area chain (with one outlet in Detroit, for no apparent reason). They not only had lots of geeky t-shirts, but their t-shirts were lightweight, which meant that you could wear them during the summer and still be comfortable.
Seems that anywhere that sells interesting tees nowadays all but boasts about how heavy-duty the fabric is. Which means they’re too heavy to wear during the time of year that you’d be most likely to wear t-shirts. 