Favourite York City Department Stores

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Iveys and Belks were uptown Charlotte as I remember them as a kid, every town in the South had either Iveys,Belks ,Spainhours or Efirds, all gone now except Belks and they are in malls, no more downtown stores.Iveys had a great restaurant, I remember it well, apple dumplings with cinnamon ice cream!! We ate there or at the S and W cafeteria , which was a very deco looking elegant building with fantastic food...gone too.
 
thanks for posting :-)

Having been a department store buyer in San Francisco for many years, I really love this thread. I have several books on the great American department stores and their demise always makes me sad. B Altman & Company..."It's Always a Pleasure."
 
My favorites were John A Brown, Haliburtons, Kerrs and Rothchilds all in Oklahoma City.  Great mainline department stores.
 
Again for us Brooklynites, Fulton Street downtown was the place to shop and our go to stores were Abraham & Straus and Martin's. (By the time I was of an age of recollection, the other great Brooklyn stores - Oppenheim & Collins, Namm's and Loeser's were long gone), Both were carriage trade stores in their day with A&S becoming more of a main line department store later in the 60's and the 70's (thank you for nothing Federated Department Stores!!). and Martins retained their quiet elegance until they ultimately closed. Someday in another post I will discuss my mother and her sisters dress shopping for a particularly important wedding and how each ended up with dresses from designers like Schiaparelli, Norrell, Christian Dior. I most clearly recall the beautiful Art Deco exterior and interior of Abraham & Straus - soaring ceilings, a frosted glass and brass elevator bank in the center of the main floor with black marble walls and white tavertine floors. And above each entrance of revolving doors, giant stone urns filled with fresh flowers. Service was impeccable and elevator operators in crisp navy uniforms with white gloves announced each floor. It was an amazing place; however later in the 80's Federated Department Stores was more focused on its Bloomingdales' division and spent next to nothing on A&S in the way of upkeep and capital improvement. Of course, downtown Brooklyn changed completely and was no longer the shopping destination it once was and the economic profile of the Brooklyn shopper changed completely as well. Still, there was no excuse for the dreadful condition of the store throughout those years. Literally, the beautiful parquet floors in the men's department were covered with filthy industrial carpet that had duct tape holding it together and two floors were completely shut down. I guess it is lucky that the reorganized Federated Department Stores didn't close the Brooklyn store when everything was changed to Macy's and there is now a plaque on the Fulton Street front of the building commemorating the store's history. But much like Chicagoans that can't get over the loss of their beloved (and rightly so) Marshall Field & Co., that is little consolation for those of us who miss our store that touted itself proudly as "the store born and raised in Brooklyn".

Outside Brooklyn, there was no other store like Altman's - beautiful and professional service and outstanding merchandise. Everything about it whispered elegance and taste. That was truly a loss!! And in outside our area, I was lucky to have traveled for business and had been exposed to I. Magnin in San Francisco and Beverly Hills, and Bullock's Wilshire in L.A. Those were shopping experiences not to be missed. I have never seen such spectacular buildings or fashions in my life - again, everything was classic, lasting quality and you never walked out of either place feeling less than a million bucks!! I. Magnin was truly "Magninique"!!

And I will also add Chicago's great Marshall Field & Co, and Philadelphia's venerable John Wanamaker to the list as well. Both stores provided unparalleled shopping and service.
Finally, these great stores were truly part of their communities - A&S had their "teen board" that used local kids to model clothes and meet with store management to keep up with current trends, etc...

What a great era!!!
 
Detroit had three major department stores downtown:

1: J.L. Hudson's - the biggest (2.2 million square feet) and the best

2. Crowley, Milner & Co.

3. Ernst Kern & Company

They are all gone - buildings and all. But what great times I had in those stores when I was a kid. Best treat was eating in Hudson's fancy dining room on the 13th floor. They were famous for chicken pot pie, Maurice salad, and Canadian cheese soup. Great memories!
 
such memories!

Kevin, you brought back so many memories of my growing up. We lived in the UP and made two trips a year to Detroit to visit my grandparents. Always, my mother would go downtown shopping while there and I would be able to go with her and my grandmother (well, actually, sometimes!) Started with J.L. Hudson (funny that we never called it Hudson's) and had lunch there. Wasn't the restaurant called the Riverview? Maurice Salad was always the lunch and, if I had been good, we would go across the street to Fred Saunders and I could have a hot fudge sundae. Then to Crowley, Milner and some other stores before coming home. I really do miss their downtown store - for that matter, I miss the J.L. Hudson stores period!
Roger Brown
 
Lived in New Orleans in the 70's and 80's and miss Krauss LTD., Masion  Blanche, DH Holmes, Godchauxs and the big downtown Sears.  All gone now.  Krauss had the great lunch counter, Masion Blanche and HOmes had the lunch counters and greay dining rooms too. 
 
In the Pittsburgh area the major department stores were Kaufmanns, Hornes, and Gimbels.
The downtown Kaufmanns "big store" is still downtown but is now a Macys with several floors and the Tic-Toc being closed. Luckily the building is a historical Landmark. The main entrance of Kaufmanns has always been a popular meeting place downtown, meeting under the big clock
 
When I was a kid sometimes my grandmother would pack me up with her and we'd take one of the Hiawatha trains from Chicago to Milwaukee for a day of shopping at Gimbal's there. Back in the 90's I was in MKE and decided to drop by the location downtown. I was surprised to find it was a junior college and the store was gone.
Was Gimbal's Milwaukee part of Gimbal's New York? I've been to both in New York.
Whatever happened to Gimbal's? [this post was last edited: 4/26/2013-23:56]
 
I wish that Marshall Fields on State Street in Chicago, IL was just that and not Macys. I still call it Marshall Fields and always will. lol At least they haven't tampered with the Walnut Room Resturant too much. No more silver on the table, stainless steel instead and tacky papers over the tables instead of white linen tablecloths. Gary
 
San Francisco had wonderful department stores that reeked with class. The White House, I Magnin & Company, The Emporium (mid line) where I worked for many years, and the City of Paris with it's stained glass dome and gourmet lower floor, Normandy Lane paneled with black glass. It's now Nieman Marcus and the dome remains.

San Jose had it's downtown stores, Hale's and Hart's. In 1933 owner Alex Hart's son was kidnapped, held for ransom but murdered shortly after his abduction. Two suspects were being held in the City Jail but an angry mob broke down the doors, hauled the guys out to nearby St. James Park and strung them up.

Kevin, if you were able to shop Hudson's Woodward Avenue store you were very fortunate. Quite possibly the world's most magnificent store, a world in itself. Diana Ross worked in one of the basement cafeterias. People of color were given the brown bag test during their interview. The prospective employee's hand was placed on a paper bag. If their hand was darker than the bag they were shown the door.

Roof rides at the top of The Emporium. People said you could tell the Christmas Season had started when you could look up and see the Ferris Wheel on The Emporium's roof.

twintubdexter++4-27-2013-00-08-24.jpg
 
Stores.

In Northern VA, I remember shopping at Hecht's (The Hecht Company) until it was taken over by Macy's. I remember at the Manassas Mall location, there was a man who worked in the menswear department for over 20 years. He wore what he sold and he made it look good! His suit was always pressed, shirt starched, and shoes shined. I still have some clothes he sold to me. When Macy's took over, he wasn't allowed to dress that way anymore and instead had to wear a polo shirt. He was miserable, and looked like a shell of his former self. The standard Macy's uniform is not at all flattering and does absolutely nothing to show off what the store sells or how good their wears can look. My salesman retired shortly after Macy's took over, and the menswear department lost a significant portion of the class it once had.

There's something nice about being greeted by a well dressed person who addresses you as "sir," or they know you better, Mr. Lastname. Not to mention salespeople who know a great deal about the goods they sell and take pride in doing so.

Dave
 
I worked for Marshall Field's (Oakbrook) during my senior year of high school. They gave you really comprehensive training before turning you loose on the sales floor.
That was back in the day when every sale required a hand written ticket. The main goal we learned was to make the customer happy at all reasonable cost. When a customer returned an item, no matter what they did or how negligent they were with the item we were always to apologize and take the item back, no questions.

What I liked was at the end of the sale was to ask the customer if they want the item "sent". Marshall Field's had it's own fleet of delivery vans and it a customer wanted the item sent, it would be delivered to their door the very next day. Free of charge. I was surprised that only about 40% of the customers chose the delivery option.

Working there helped later on in life when I could explain my customer service skills. I always said I was trained by Marshall Field's and that always made an interviewer happy.
 
Sometimes I think we only have our self's to blame.

There was a time when is was fun to travel. You would go to cities in this country, and others countries,and they all had their own department stores. You could find things that were not carried by your local department stores. You would come back from a trip or weekend away and invariably you would be asked "Where did you get that?" And the reply would be Dayton's, Marshall Field, Bullock, May D&F, Brandeis, Killpatrick's, Hall, The Jones Store, This was always said with a great deal of pleasure. Because you knew you had something that no one else would have for at least awhile. You were an individual! But somewhere a long the line we wanted familiarity, and similarity when we traveled. We did not want live as the Romans do while in Rome.
We want to see a McDonald's In Paris! Kentucky fried chicken in Beijing. We wanted a Dillard in every city. Almost always when you traveled one day was allotted to shopping. It is so sad every mall in this country is the same in every city.
 
That is so true - whatever department stores that are still left have absolutely no individual personality. They all carry the same merchandise wherever they are located. But that is mainly because in the interest of cost cutting, buying offices were centralized so for example, Goldwater's in Arizona would have get the same stuff as Robinson's in LA or L.S Ayres in Indianapolis, Joseph Horne in Pittsburgh or Hahne & Co. in Newark - all sister stores under the same parent, Associated Dry Goods. All at one time had regional buyers who understood the different personalities of each US region. I used Associated Dry Goods as an example because their stores were always the most individual of all the retail chains (Allied and Federated included). May Company always employed that philosophy. Their stores were even renovated to look the same and other than the actual name, the logos all looked the same. It didn't matter if you were in G. Fox in Hartford or Famous-Barr in St. Louis, the layout, etc... , even the smell was the same. I guess this led to certain efficiencies and cost savings, but shopping lost its allure and there was nothing great to buy anymore. Now everything is Macy's anyway and I simply refuse to shop there...

Now I just go to Brooks Brothers but I also feel I need fewer clothes as I get on in life...
 
When I was a child.....

When I was a child in Anderson, SC , we had a Gallant-Belk, but serious shopping and usually around the holidays was done in Greenville, SC 30 minutes to the north of us at Ivey's at the McAlister Square Mall. It was a big deal!!! Also, if one had to see a medical specialist or a dental surgeon, that was done in Greenville as well.
 

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