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Department Stores

Yeilding’s – Your Friendly Department Store – Established 1876 – Birmingham, AL

© Frank H. Jump

Figuring out when the Yeilding’s signs appeared on the building’s rear façade is complicated because the expansive brick wall has hosted a series of painted ads. A close inspection reveals traces of the words “Baking,” “Cake” and “Butter” in the beige paint from an early mural. By the late 1910s or early 1920s, they had been covered by a colorful ad for Snowdrift, “the perfect shortening,” that stretched two and a half stories up the wall. – Charles Buchanan, Fading Ads of Birmingham (History Press, 2012)

Baking – Cake – Butter © Frank H. Jump

© Frank H. Jump

© Frank H. Jump

New Ideal Department Store – Birmingham, AL

Panoramic © Frank H. Jump – CLICK FOR LARGER IMAGE

© Frank H. Jump

© Frank H. Jump

© Frank H. Jump

© Frank H. Jump

Jamieson’s – Trinidad’s Leading Dept Store – Trinidad, CO

© Frank H. Jump

Denver Public Library Digital Collection

Jamieson’s Department Store Window – Denver Library Digital Collection – CLICK FOR LARGER IMAGE

Inside Jamieson’s Department Store – Denver Library Digital Collection

© Frank H. Jump

 

Hub Discount Department Stores – West Market – Louisville, KY

© Frank H. Jump

© Frank H. Jump

Bernzrite Propane – Two Guys (from Harrison) New Jersey

© Frank H. Jump

Now Bernzomatic © Frank H. Jump

Ebay

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 9, 2007 © Pleasant Family Shopping

Glory Days of Buffalo Shopping © Michael F. Rizzo

 

Two Guys From Harrison (later shortened to Two Guys) was a discount store chain founded in 1946 by brothers Sidney and Herbert Hubschman in Harrison, New Jersey, originally selling major appliances such as televisions. The chain acquired the manufacturers of the Vornado appliance brand in 1959, and spread beyond the New York City metropolitan area to more than 100 locations in upstate New York, eastern Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maryland, Virginia, and as far as Illinois and California. The company’s financial success started to decline in the late 1970s, and was defunct by 1982. – Wikipedia

 

Flickr Photostream © Bob Batchelor

Flickr Photostream © Christian Montone

Before they were “Two Guys” department stores, they were “2 Guys from Harrison.” Here’s a 1950s photo of Sidney and Herbert Hubschman’s Lodi store. Courtesy of Susan Conway DeRosa. © Vintage Everyday Blog

J. W. Mays Department Stores (now a real estate firm) – Fulton Street Mall – Downtown Brooklyn

© Frank H. Jump

J.W. Mays, Inc. (NASDAQ: MAYS) is a real estate firm based in Brooklyn, New York, United States. From 1927 until 1988 the company ran a chain of discount department stores in the area surrounding New York City referred to as simply Mays, with stores located in three of New York City’s five boroughs and Long Island. At its height as a retailer, the firm had 5000 employees working in 9 stores during the early 1970s. – Wikipedia

Scripophily

Until the end of the 1950s, Mays was about the best you could do if you lived in Levittown…” – Steve Bergsman – Growing Up Levittown: In a Time of Conformity, Controversy and Cultural Crisis

Levittown Memorial HS © Gino Lynch

I was one of the kids who would always walk to the shopping center. I would go into Mays department store to steal whatever I could sell to somebody. Sometimes, it was albums, other times jewelry and watches. But my favorite and most lucrative time of year was winter, when I would steal winter coats. That was the best because it was good money. I had customers lined up around the block – students, janitors and teachers alike.” – Justin Doyle – I Am Nobody, I Am Somebody

We never had the pleasure to live in Levittown. Since my father worked for PanAm, we always lived near JFK Airport, which we properly triangulated from 1960 to 1969. Born in Far Rockaway, we lived briefly in Belle Harbor and then was whisked off to Laurelton, not far from the Green Acres mall, where my mother often dragged me kicking and screaming. I hated department stores. The smells of over-perfumed frantic female shoppers and the cacophony of sounds- the constant ringing of bells over the PA to signal managers, the grinding and droning ambiance of the escalators and the sound of my mother’s voice constantly calling my name if I wasn’t in clear view – which I never was since I was a hyperactive child, perpetually acting out and hiding from her under circular racks of cashmere sweaters and mohair skirts. I remember shopping with my mother at Mays in Jamaica as a kid. I wasn’t particularly impressed by it.

After years of being forced-bussed to P.S. 37 Elementary School in Springfield Gardens in the early to late 60s and after many an altercation with the local students who weren’t particularly interested in my integration of their school, we moved to Howard Beach, not long after the RFK and MLK assassinations. By then, I was more culturally Black and had some trouble in the beginning becoming “reintegrated.” This made for a rich upbringing which I never would have traded for the ability to have been able to walk to my zoned school just a block away. However, I would love to buy back all of the time I was shuttled in and out of department stores by my mom. No wonder so many suburban white kids shoplifted (without the fear of being killed by police for it).

Instagram © Frank H. Jump

Always carry a red pen with you. Why shoplift? Price change (it shows willingness to pay)!

M. Knopf & Co. – Monoprix – Colmar, Alsace FR – Gaia Son

© Gaia Son

Colmar Kaufhaus M. Knopf & Cie Feldpost CLICK FOR LARGER IMAGE – delcampe dot net

Dating back to 1898, the headquarters of the Strasbourg branch of the Knopf dynasty: the office of the Strasbourg Berninger & Krafft designed for Moritz Knopf’s warehouse Palace. Photo: Municipal Archives Strasbourg

Hertie, Kaufhof, Karstadt, Schocken, Wertheim and: Knopf. In this illustrious line of German, to exclusively Jewish Karstadt department store companies to find the name Knopf may surprise you. But at least until the end of World War II was the Knopf department store chain, founded by three siblings Max Knopf (Karlsruhe), Moritz Knopf (Strasbourg) and Sally Knopf (Freiburg), the three great equals of this industry. Knopf had beside Freiburg not just branch plants in Lörrach, Emmendingen, Offenburg and Schopfheim: A total of more than 50 branches and partner companies in Southern Germany, Switzerland, Alsace and the Saarland, Lorraine and Luxembourg were part of the Knopf empire – and large, magnificent Department stores in major cities such as Karlsruhe, Mannheim, Frankfurt and Strasbourg. – Badische Zeitung

Reflections on The Boston Store, Chicago – Featured Fade, Peter Anderson

© Peter Anderson

The dry goods emporium began life on this site in 1873 when Charles Netcher opened the Boston in a small 5-story building. The story goes that he was so dedicated to seeing the enterprise become a success that he spent his nights sleeping on showcase counter tops in order to spend as much time in the store as possible. His dedication paid off, and in 1891 after marrying ladies undergarment buyer Mollie Alpiner, the pair began acquiring property surrounding the store. Not wanting to show his hand and overpay, Netcher used third parties and pseudonyms to buy, or lease for 99 year terms, the half block fronting State Street and running west along Madison Street to Dearborn.Designs Linger 

Courtesy of John Chuckman – CLICK FOR LINK

Not to be confused with The Boston Store of Erie, Pennsylvania.

University of Chicago – Digital Library – CLICK FOR LARGER IMAGE

Peter Anderson works in the financial sector but writes fiction, “to ease the crushing monotony of corporate life.” Anderson lives and writes in Joliet, Illinois and his novel Wheatyard was published by Kuboa Press in 2013.

Uptown Correspondent – Iman R. Abdulfattah – Gaylord’s Discount Department Stores – Sherwin Williams Paints – Cleveland, OH

© Iman R. Abdulfattah

Uptown Correspondent – Iman R. Abdulfattah – Grants Department Store – Known For Values – Visit Our Luncheonette – Cleveland, OH

© Iman R. Abdulfattah

W. T Grant – Wikipedia