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It is my sincere desire to provide readers of this site with the best unbiased information available, and a forum where it can be discussed openly, as our Founders intended. But it is not easy nor inexpensive to do so, especially when those who wish to prevent us from making the truth known, attack us without mercy on all fronts on a daily basis. So each time you visit the site, I would ask that you consider the value that you receive and have received from The Burning Platform and the community of which you are a vital part. I can't do it all alone, and I need your help and support to keep it alive. Please consider contributing an amount commensurate to the value that you receive from this site and community, or even by becoming a sustaining supporter through periodic contributions. [Burning Platform LLC - PO Box 1520 Kulpsville, PA 19443] or Paypal
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Western Auto Where I got my 1st bike.
My first one and my last one.
In the little town I grew up in it was Wally Hansen’s Western Auto…long gone… I still have a square shovel I bought there in 1975
” a square shovel” ?
HOW in the World did Ya dig a Round Hole?
… from the side …
Monkey Ward’s
Wife worked in high school there and on breaks during college.
My Mom worked there part time after my younger sister got in Jr. High.
T,G&Y 5 and ten cent store
Turtles girdles & yoyos is what my mom called tg&y, the one in my town closed about 30yrs. ago
When I was 12, I bought a 20 ga shotgun at TG&Y. They were based in OKC and I called on them after college.
After being a stock boy at TG&Y I was promoted to Sporting Goods, ‘Heaven’ surrounded by guns and ammo, our store even had a couple fake bear hides on the wall.
First job other than farm work when I was 16. I was a stock boy.
TG&Y was usually just referred to in our area as “The Dime Store”.
Billy Blake’s, Rickels ,Ben Franklin, Bohacks,Abraham &Strauss ,Gimbel’s.
Bohack. Damn, I remember that growing up in Ridgewood Queens, NY.
Chas-I lived in Ridgewood until 1st grade. Went to St. Mathias school. I remember the A&P on Myrtle Ave
Hi Bob, it’s a pleasure. Looks like we walked the same cement. I lived in Ridgewood till 1981 when I left for the Navy. I lived on Bleeker between Fairview and Grandview. 100 years my man but it was a great city with great people. I loved going down to Myrtle Ave. Best shopping. Stay Young brother.
Ben Franklin still has some locations. Saw one last month in Middlebury,VT
J.C. Murphy’s, Newberrys both national chains.
We still have a Ben Franklin!!
Herberger’s
My son and I used to call it HerBURGERs.
Macy’s
It just seems like they’re gone….but they’re not.
The is a Macy’s in Milwaukee
While not entirely gone, you can easily add SEARS, J.C. PENNY and MACY’S to the stores in the dustbin of history. Imagine if someone told you in 1985 that those 3 retail chain titans would disappear in the next 50 years you would have said they were crazy. How things change.
Of course if someone told me today that Apple would go bankrupt within 50 years, I’d say they were crazy.
I once saw a slide of the top 10 retail stores of the 40’s, 50’s, 60’s, 70’s & 80’s. It was amazing to see the changes that occurred over the 50 years.
Sprouse Reitz, and (W.T.) Grants
Service Merchandise. K Mart. Circuit City. Toys R Us. Merry Go Round. Walden Books. Wix n’ Stix. Turtle’s (record store). Babbages. EB Games.
PCS, there was an association of black business men who bought Toys R Us.
They renamed it: “We Be Toys n Shit”
There’s a parody commercial somewhere called “H & R Black” (tax preparers). There’s another fake ad of an airline, delivered in impenetrable Ebonics: “We be flyin’ all up in this bitch . . . “. They may both have come from the Opie & Anthony radio show decades ago.
Woolworth’s
yep -mom took us there for lunch when I was a kid – she would order grilled cheese sandwiches for my brother and I and ask the waitress to “watch us” while she went and shopped. Different times then today.
Bradlees, Hechingers, S. Klein
Blockbuster
BB believed I owed them for a late return, I didn’t. But then ‘poof’ they were gone.
I knew tons of people who had issues with BB and their member prices always seemed to increase.
I owed them for a video since 1998. It was a romcom starring Richard Dreyfuss called Krippendorff’s Tribe and it bombed in the theaters but was mildly amusing. The video was worth $10 and they fking sold the debt to a collection agency. They finally gave up several years ago. With rental interest I would owe $306,298.24 on it.
There is a documentary (Netflix?) called “The Last Blockbuster”, which is in Bend, Oregon. I lived in Bend from 1978-1983, right before renting video tapes was popular, so it wasn’t there when I was. The documentary is good. That BB is probably gone now–the owner had to get permission to stay open from the parent company the last few years.
IIRC, the guy who started Netflix did so because he was pissed about Blockbuster’s fines for not returning tapes on time…or was it RedBox? Anyway, he’s a billionaire now.
IN Chicago, Goldblatts department store on Milwaukee ave, Grossman’s- the corner store, and Mike Nudelmans’s fruit truck.
Also Gimbles, not sure on the spelling, in Milwaukee
Was a fixture in NYC too. Macy’s and Gimbles were serious competitors.
F. W. Woolworth Company
National Welders Supply
Howard Johnson’s
Montgomery Ward (since 2004 online now only)
And, irony if only because of the name:
Banana Republic (claims global lifestyle brand with over 400 company-operated and franchise stores.)
I miss the Howard Johnsons clam and fish fry lol and orange sherbet!
Their “Mighty Moe” hamburger was to die for!
Tower records, Hechinger, Sears, KMart, Circuit City, BDalton Books, Borders Books, Waldenbooks, Woodward and Lothrop, Wooworth, Babbages, RadioShack [99% gone!], Little tavern hamburgers, Blockbuster [supposedly there’s exactly one left selling nostalgia stuff!] Amazing the list of the stores I can remember that’s long gone… So sad…
I can’t believe I forgot Howard Johnson’s! Breakfast there was always awesome million years ago
…
I remember the all you can eat clams at HoJo’s.
Thx, I forgot the HoJo’s nickname.
I loved those fried clams smothered in tartar sauce!
There was a HoJo’s right around the corner from my office and we would hit it for AYCE clams about once a month.
Last time that I saw a HJ’s was on the TV series Madmen.
Also this one.
Best movie ever made!
Sears is in a coma, not dead.
The guy who bought Sears and then added K-mart knew nothing about and couldn’t care less about retail-he bought those chains because they owned much of the land their stores sat on and did not lease like most other retailers. Eddie Lampert does know and cares about real estate, plus he’s a billionaire.
W&L (Woodward/Lothrop) was local to Washington, D.C., I believe, as was Hecht’s, which became Macy’s in the space where it was in Tyson’s Corner Mall (also where there was a W&L).
Also in that mall was a store named “World Imports” that had cheap neuvo furniture and non-U.S. knick-knacks. Behind a curtain was a “head shop” where they sold bongs, rolling papers, posters, etc. I worked in that part of the store as a 2nd job just to meet the chicks and hippies who used to come in.
Sears? I grew up in San Mateo (during 60’s anyway). This little gem of a video captures the Hillsdale mall as it was. At that Mayfair market you (not me, but) could buy a 24 can CASE of beer called “Red Velvet”(shit beer) for $2.40. That theater across the “street” (El Camino) is where I first saw “Easy Rider”. Around the 6 min mark starts the original promotional film.
“FREE PARKING!!!” I’m sure most of those stores featured don’t exist.
Just look at those cars!! They don’t make em’ like that anymore!
yea, the British one is still there……wouldnt start. hahahaha
On further reflection (going deep dive in the memory hole), that cheap beer was called “Velvet HAZE”.. a great beer name, but really crappy beer. It also had a bomb shelter underneath with 1000’s of gallons of water in case, you know, ruskies dropped the big one.
Zodys, Fedco, Thriftymart, Builder’s Emporium, Alpha Beta markets.
Wanamakers, Bambergers, Strawbridges
Zayre, Caldor, Ames, Filene’s, Lechmere, Jordan Marsh, Woolworth’s, Bradlee’s, Gilchrist’s, Bldg. 19, Ann & Hope, Finast, A & P, Purity Supreme, Brigham’s, Buttrick’s, Pewter Pot, Bel Canto, Strawberries, Tower Records, Howard Johnson’s, Burger Chef, Benny’s, and probably two dozen more. Many of these were around Boston or New England or the Northeast. Oh, and a million bookstores.
RIP, America. People used to work in mills and factories, not live in ’em.
Lets add Spag’s before Bldg 19 took them over. Now just a plaque at the site. Spag’s had nearly every household item you might need.
Oh yeah, Spags was the BEST!
Filene’s basement.
Ah yes the old New England favorites
G Fox in downtown Hartford CT
That was some location, wasn’t it? I heard that G Fox bribed someone in the state DOT to have I-84 dump all the traffic transitioning to I-91 off the highway and in front of the store. I can’t think of another reason that was the case for all those years until they finally fixed it.
Marshall Field’s
Yeah, I never had the cash to buy anything there, but all the Marshall Fields stores were sure impressive, and the flagship store in Chicago’s Loop was amazing.
Marshall Field wanted to leave a legacy, so he also put up major cash for the Field Museum of Natural History on Chicagos lake shore.
I remember thinking that no doubt his legacy will be the Marshall Field’s stores, rather than the museum, but no, he was right, the Museum far outlived all the big, amazing Marshall Field’s stores.
Yes. They were definitely an iconic Loop store along with Kroks and Brentano’s book store.
Billy Jo Barker’s Bullets, Bait and Beer store in Cleveland, Mississippi.
I hope that the Cleveland in Mississippi is better than the one in Ohio … ‘the mistake on the Lake’ — ‘on the shores of Lake Dreary’ … and it used to have a river running into it that would burn (the Cuyahoga River) …
It was an all White kinda big town in the heart of MS. I went there as a travelling portrait photographer (baby photographer) around 1977 or so. Cleveland was the town that time forgot. 100% White. Some Blacks worked in town but were forbidden to stay anywhere overnight. It was as if the civil rights act was never passed, the civil war just ended and Blacks were second class citizens. I had my 1975 Dodge Coronet with CT plates and I couldn’t get a room at any motel around there at first. When I checked in at the Sears store I was going to be working at and mentioned that to the manager, he set me up at a nice place. He was a great guy and told me to just roll with what I heard and saw.
The reason there were so many motels? Fishing I guess. I don’t remember but I was told by the manager to not wander into any Black bars or local White bars at any time. I was 20 yo then and so I just bought some beer and stayed at the motel.
I wonder what it’s like today? Probably got all corporatized like every other unique place.
Wanamaker’s
Two Guys from Harrison.
we had one in Middletown, NJ
troutman’s, gaylord’s, fisher’s big wheel, zayre, ames, hill’s
Caldor – another Zayre/K-Mart type store. My 2-yr. old used to ride the little merry-go-round just inside the entrance.
Builders Square
Hugh M. Woods, Handy Dan, Brookharts. All preferable to HD and Lowes.
Miracle Mart in LaSalle, Quebec in the 60s. It was a lot like an earlier version of a KMart style general store.
More recently, Eatons.
Gibsons, ALCO (though parent Duckwalls survives and does well in small towns in Midwest), and Venture (I think it too died)-were “discount” stores that carried a wide selection of stuff.
These stores closed because the people, the economic class of people, they catered to no longer have the means to support such stores.
Merger & acquisition fever hasn’t helped, along with Fed Reserve printing and offshoring and automation. Someone has to actually make and sell stuff, not just consolidate and vampire squid off of the productive. The feminist destruction of the family and indiscriminate immigration and the overall destruction of neighborhoods have contributed, too.
Add in economies of scale by Walmart, etc., and the rush to save a few cents or dollars on a toaster, but at the expense of local economic structures (which actually costs even more in both financial and other terms), and here we are.
We need to bring back manufacturing, trades, and apprenticeships, too, and defund the cultural-Marxism indoctrination centers disguised as higher ed. Most don’t need college, but trade vocational training.
Woolworth’s or any five-and-dime store.
Eckerd’s Drug
Long’s Drug on West Coast.
My Grandma used to take me to Kress, which became K-Mart later. She would give me a nickel to go to the candy counter to pick out whatever I wanted. I always gravitated to the hot nuts and would spend an eternity trying to decide if I wanted a few cashews, a few more Virginian peanuts or a nice size bag of Spanish peanuts. Cashews were my favorite, but you did not get enough of them for a nickel to make it worth your while, so I invariably would buy $.05 of Spanish peanuts. I’m sure the ladies at the counter always gave me a “good” measure when weighing out my peanuts. I would then go find Grandma who had just about finished her shopping and share my peanuts with her as she checked out.
Thanks for bringing back a very good memory.
S S Kresge became Kress which became K-Mart …
For a while we has SS Kresge and K-mart-never heard of Kress. Used to ask K-Mart cashiers if they ever heard of SS Kresge-answer always was no, then told them it was the forerunner of K-Mart.
I have a massive spreadsheet of failed retail chains of all sorts which goes on for pages and pages. And those are just chains that existed in the USA.
Done in by economic decline, mergers, sharpie MBAs who think they know everything but actually know nothing, and no doubt Blackness.
Coast to Coast, Gibsons Discount Center, Alco’s…
Still have a almost perfect Gibsons store brand coffee can. My mother and grandmother only bought a couple of cans as it was so bad.
Ames, Zayre, Woolworth, Kmart, Jordan Marsh
Pretty much every store in the long defunct Big Town Mall in Mesquite, TX . . . Woolworths, Monkey Wards, A&P, Titche’s, Sanger Harris, also M. E. Moses, Safeway, Western Auto, Gibsons
SS Kresge
EJ Korvettes
Zayre
Korvettes and Kresge, forgot all about those two.
Filene’s.
Foley’s, Skaggs Alpha Beta, Food Lion, Fry’s Electronics, Sanger-Harris, Fuddrucker’s, Bennigan’s, Monnig’s, W.C. Stripling, S&H Green Stamps, Waldenbooks, Babbage’s, Structure, Gadzooks, Mervyn’s, CompUSA
First visit to Fry’s Electronics in Sunnyvale in the ’80s was a shock: you could be everything from chewing gum to Intel microprocessers.
Really miss Fry’s here in Texas (before they fell apart and stopped stocking things). Still have a Microcenter though.
Circuit City, Radio Shack.
Tempo, Prange’s, A&P
Bamberger’s
was a department store chain with locations primarily in New Jersey, also with locations in the states of Delaware, Maryland, New York, and Pennsylvania.[1] The chain was headquartered in Newark, New Jersey.[1]
Also, Crazy Eddie’s
Where prices are insane!
The SEC got after Crazy Eddie — like all good (((shysters))) he fled to the homeland …
NY Post did a 2 page spread on him yesterday. Yup, a Joo, a con artist his entire life, got rich, got caught, went to jail, died poor 6 years ago.
BTW, the asshole in the commercial was NOT Crazy Eddie … he was a DJ.
https://nypost.com/2022/09/10/retail-king-crazy-eddie-antar-led-an-even-crazier-real-life/
Good find.
Ernst-Malmo,
Pay-n-Save,
Pay ‘N Pak
Wigwam,
Frederick & Nelson,
Woolworths
Jay Jacob’s
Mr. Rags
Squire Shop
Orange Julius
Music Street Record Store
Space Port Arcade
Buster Brown Shoes
These were the stores we went to in one of the first “malls” opened in the Seattle Area, Aurora Village . It first opened in 1960, and was an open-air mall. Our parents would take my brother and me to do our Back-To-School shopping there in the early to mid 70’s, and as we got older we’d go on our own with our friends to see movies, eat junk food, and play games in the Arcade…..
Pay ‘N Pak also had a locally owned hydroplane for the Seafair Races in Lake Washington back when they were all still piston-powered boats…..
The Fruits of our misspent youth….. Great Times!
Finally shut down in ’92, and became a Costco, Home Depot, and Staples……
My favorite record store in Seattle. Peaches.
Arbeit macht frei
Nedicks hot dogs and horn and Hardart in Penn Station Ny in the 70s.
I had many a beer and hotdog at Nedicks on the way from Jersey to Suffolk county on the Island saturday nights.
My dad worked for Long Island Railroad at Penn Station . I loved the seedy old Penn .McAnns bar was right by Nedicks .That’s gone too.
Would guess that nearly everyone here couldn’t wait for the Sears® Christmas Catalog. Wasn’t long after i grew outta those kinda toys.
“ANOTHER BANNER YEAR!”, The News Story. Where sears made more on debt interest, or whatever the proper term is…Than they did on Total Sales net profit, or again, whatever ya call it.
Good riddance. Those glossy pages were WORTHLESS. In the 2 Holer.
Sears catalog was the poor kids Playboy in our two holer. We looked at the ladies underware section and my sisters looked at the mens brief section.
Sounds like an equal opportunity outhouse. Who stayed inside longer? Boys or girls?
Always the older girls. It was far enough from the house for them to talk without Mom listening.
Western Auto where dad bought me my first rifle … .22 cal. single shot for $16. I was 14.
Western was the place to go for bicycle parts/accessories, Davis tires, and even had competitive prices on kitchen appliances, especially refrigerators.
Woolworth & Kmart
Donaldson’s. Dayton’s.
Both were department stores. Furniture, clothing, jewelry, perfume, etc.
The Dayton family owned Dayton-Hudson which owned (and started Target). Target was taking off while Dayton’s was in decline, so they changed the name of the company to Target. Mark Dayton married Jay Rockefeller’s sister and eventually became MN’s two term governor. “Governor Mumbles.”
Role model for Joe Dementia?
Farrell’s Ice Cream Parlour and Restaurant
And
Toys r us
Farrell’s! Didn’t they invent the Lalapalooza?
Kids could eat a big ice cream sundae on occasion back in those days without turning into porkers because there were no electronic games, no internet. All we did was ride bikes, go sledding etc.
Not only that but, it was a special treat. We didn’t even have ice cream in our house but every so often.
The zoo and the pig trough. Good times.
Yep, ordered the Zoo at my 8th grade graduation. Didn’t even make a dent in it.
Good times, good times.
I can’t square the fact that the descendants of the workers in that craft shop claim to be super afraid of being forced to work in a similar place, but also dedicate every fiber of their being to making sure that everyone else wants them to be.
If Norman Rockwell was a store, he would have been Sears. Tools and tents, shirts and pants. Refrigerators, washers, dryers, and televisions too. Motor oil and business suits. Appliance and car repair, plus tires mounted and balanced.
Was a nice era.
We had a Sears Farm and Ranch store-saddles, barbed wire, post hole diggers-you name it.
buster brown shoes ; robert meyer clothing
Radio Shack,, A&P markets