Posted on 12/15/2018 6:21:06 AM PST by NOBO2012
When I was growing up every town had at least one iconic department store that did Christmas right: fabulous back-lit and magical Christmas displays, often animated, gracing all of their street level windows. In a time before kids were so wired into their iPhones and “social” networks that they missed much of the amazement of the real world, there were all these fabulous windows of mystery and wonder, free for the taking. All it took was a dime bus ride downtown.
I was very lucky as my hometown, Grand Rapids, MI, had three such emporiums of merchandise, all founded in the late 1800’s:
All now long gone. One of them, Herpolsheimer’s, however lives on as it has been memorialized in the film version of Chris Van Allsburg’s book The Polar Express.
The old Herp’s, as the locals called it, had what was called the “Santa Express” – a monorail that ran around the entire basement level of the store during the Christmas season to keep kids occupied as mom and dad shopped.
It is said to have served as the inspiration for Van Allsburg’s popular book.
The old Herpolsheimer’s building,
which once housed the inspirational train and window wonders currently houses the Grand Rapids Police Department. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but you probably wouldn’t want to take your kids there for a festive Christmas pot pie lunch in their tea room.
And don’t even get me started on the “dime” stores, of which Grand Rapids also enjoyed three:
Woolworths, above, at the foot of Monroe, Grants, right next door, and Kresge’s just up a block to the east.
Also all gone.
What about your town’s locally owned iconic department stores? Do any of them still exist? Are any of them still in the downtown area? Or is your downtown comprised of restaurants, bars and clubs these days? Just wondering.
Posted from: MOTUS A.D.
I don’t recall any store in my hometown of DeFuniak Springs doing anything out of the ordinary for Christmas.
Nothing like the scene in “A Christmas Story” of Higbees.
One store did do a unique and actually memorable thing once a year. They would serve all you could eat boiled peanuts. Just throw the shells on the floor which was wood.
It was the “Quality Store”. They sold good solid mid price goods such as Wrangler jeans.
Detroit had the iconic Hudson’s Department Store. As a kid in the 60’s I remember the toy department was on the ninth floor. They had elevator operators who would pull the lever to the floor you wanted.
The toy department had a huge selection of Nylint toy cars and trucks. After shopping we would go to Sanders Ice Cream shoppe for a hot fudge cream puff Sundae.
We would always go downtown in Chicago to
Fields. Their store windows were always decorated.
Also the toy department had examples of toys you could
play with and a great train layout.
Frango mints!!!
https://www.brownstoner.com/history/walkabout-frears-troy-cash-bazaar-part-one/
Troy’s most famous department store is still open as an antique store.
Many beautiful buildings in Troy were razed for urban “renewal” including a gorgeous and unrepeatable Victorian train station.
An entire block, Franklin Square demolished for a parking garage.
I am technically from Cohoes (not originally) but live across the river from Troy and am growing fond of it as I learn its history.
Troy was a fabulous city ruined by Section 8 ers.
We used to have Fowler’s downtown and when you walked in the door on Thursday Night (when all of the Downtown stores were open late, up on this stage over the staircase down into the Basement was Ethel in this gold cocktail gown with gloves playing this Hammond Organ very very well. It was magical! Boscov’s is there now and although the building needs a major injection of preservation money the store does very well. The Millenials are restoring buildings that weren’t devistated by Urban Renewal and creating new restaurants and brewpubs and the like. Downtown Binghamton isn’t the Parlor City like it used to be, but it is better than it was..
In Denver, we had the 16th Street Mall. It is closed to traffic and had all kinds of shops. Only recently, however, the pot laws have drawn in every vagrant across the country and that mall is now littered with homeless bums looking to get high. Crime is rampant, and many stores are now gone.
We also had Broadway just south of downtown. Lots of outdoor shopping and a nice place, in the 1960’s. Today, it’s porn shops and pot shops.
In Jax, FL where I grew up it was Furchgotts dept store.
My grandad told me when he was a kid living in Queens, NY, it was a big deal to take the subway to the city Thanksgiving evening and wait until midnight for the big department stores to open their display windows. Nothing about Christmas until then. Now it seems Christmas starts in July; it’s all about sell sell sell, buy buy buy. And don’t you dare mention Christ in Christmas.
Spent my youth in Baltimore, Philadelphia and NYC where we had the joy of window and store shopping. Even after the AF took me to smaller cities I went downtown Sacramento and Omaha to Christmas shop. Stationed in LA 60s into 90s I tried but Rodeo drive was not the old downtowns I remember.”
Lovely
...but I read it as ‘Downton Christmas Memories’
Just a tad disappointed
When I read the headline, I hoped you were from Grand Rapids. I still have a Wurzburgs Santa pin. We are privileged to have grown up here when life was so good. Thanks for your post!
Downtowns were the place to be. You went there to shop, eat, see a film, meet friends. No more. Downtowns were taken over by individuals who don’t respect the rights of others. In this area, they are places where I would never go at night.
Liberal politicians are responsible for this transformation.
“In Denver, we had the 16th Street Mall. It is closed to traffic and had all kinds of shops. Only recently, however, the pot laws have drawn in every vagrant across the country and that mall is now littered with homeless bums looking to get high. Crime is rampant, and many stores are now gone.
We also had Broadway just south of downtown. Lots of outdoor shopping and a nice place, in the 1960’s. Today, it’s porn shops and pot shops.”
Indeed so. Colorado has been Californicated, aided by a wimpoid governor who’s been chosen to be the next president (by the build-a-Borgs). Denver has a corrupt city government, a totally worthless mayor and police chief, and is currently trying to become Vancouver by having places where druggies can be helped by the city to shoot up. Oh, and vagrants can legally take bodacious Obamas on the streets. A beautiful city with a sh*thole future.
These idiots are not liberal but leftist tools.
Well yarddog you wouldn’t.....You live in Florida!
.We Florida folk don’t get the Hallmark Experience when the Christmas season is usually, almost always hot, humid and sweaty
Thank you for the wonderful photo essay on my hometown, Grand Rapids, Michigan. I have fond memories of Christmas downtown and the windows at Stek’s, Herp’s and Wurzburg’s. It’s a shame they tore out the corner where Kresge’s and Woolworth’s were for that ampatheater thing. They tore down the old Savoy, too, although the art museum is nice. I’m glad to see the building and development going on around Founders. Downtown GR is growing, expanding into the abandoned warehouse district nicely. We used to say the best way to see GR is in the rear view mirror, but now, not so much anymore. I enjoy seeing the growth. It seems like there’s a new microbrewery or micro distillery to visit every time I’m back in town. Merry Christmas to you!
Chicago also imposed a pedestrians-only “mall” on the downtown State Street shopping corridor in the late 70s. Utterly destroyed it, as shoppers who didn’t want to lug their purchases blocks away to their cars left for North Michigan Avenue and the suburban malls, and then the remaining crowds avoided the mall for fear of the urban street life.
Only in recent years has State Street (finally de-malled) made a comeback...and it’s still not the same.
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