mostly early childhood stores, but I still have a green and white striped gift box from Harzfeld's that my Mom used to store some nostalgic items.

Santa.

I would go straight to the hobby and book sections. I especially loved the Peanuts and Winnie-the-Pooh books

Every January I refreshed my kitchen towels cuz they put them on sale three for $3. Nice terry cloth ones, too. Super absorbent. Now you pay $3 per towel. WTF happened? They had great deals all over the store!! The one I shopped at was one of the last retailers to offer lay-away.

Mom worked there in the 80's.

Woodie's downtown DC store had amazingly decorated windows for the holidays.

a fellow DC denizen.

But when my sister and I were kids, my parents took us to downtown Cleveland a few times, this would have been in the mid 60s. Among the several big department stores, there was one called Sterling-Lindner’s.
Every Christmas they had a huge real tree on display in the atrium of the store. The one in 1966 was 73 ft. Tall. Gazing up at that tree I felt like it must have reached into the heavens. I still remember it well to this day. We also went to Higbee’s, Halle’s, I’m sure others. It was such a magical time. Halle’s 7th floor was the toy floor. They had this guy there called Mr. Jingaling who was dressed in a costume supposed to be one of Santa’s elves. You could ride around the toy dept. on a little train and when you got off the train his helper would give you a little paper cup of Jordan almonds (which I disliked but that was a minor thing). Mr. Jingaling also made appearances on local kid TV shows so of course every kid in the area wanted their parents to take them to Halle’s 7th floor. Also the store had those vacuum tubes to send your payment to the office when you bought something. I was into Steiff stuffed animals back then and I remember my mother bought me a stuffed tiger. It was such a happy time.

Here is the Sterling Lindner tree from 1966.

during the late 1940's and early 50's. He was taking engineering classes at Case Institute (now Case Western) at the time, but said he seriously thought about pursuing a career in retail after his experience at Halle's.

My Dad graduated from Case, too.

Jordan Marsh for the more expensive stuff. Both in Downton Boston.

line up.

I'm not sure if there is still a Thanksgiving day parade in Detroit anymore, or what it is called, or who sponsors it. But it was a big deal back in the day.

They call it "America's Parade" now. You can stream it next year on WDIV, which is what I did this year.

Many good memories.

When I got a bit older, the Radio Shack catalog

Michigan department stores.

I forgot about Federal's.

Really couldn't afford to do much actual shopping, but the atmosphere was magical and exciting.

One of my first jobs after graduating from college in the early 1980s was with Horne's as an Assistant Buyer. They were owned by Associated Dry Goods during that period. I loved that store, but the salary wasn't great and the hours were long.

And going downtown to see the windows at O'Neil's and Polsky's



If I was lucky, Granma Schenk would take me to the Oak Room for "luncheon".

at the windows and decorations and maybe eat at the Tea Room .

...the Bethlehem mines one person he worked with until the war was Charles Bronson. Nanty Glo ( a Welsh word) was literally a bump in the road. He died of Black Lung, and Jake Yablonski and the UMW made his last years much better. I am pro union partially from this.

downtown Chi.

We went DOWNTOWN to look ALL the Xmas displays;
Goldblatt's and the wonderful windows of Lebolt and Peacock Jewelry.
My brother designed and arranged windows at one of those store....

This would have been the early 80s, my son was about 4 or 5. We oohed and ahhed at the Christmas decorations. And we saw Mark Malone sitting at a table signing autographs! There was a long line of people waiting for an autograph. He was quite good looking!

and Jay Jacobs were great stores for shopping and looking at all of the lights and decorations inside and in the huge windows. They have all gone out of business. Frederick & Nelson had elaborate window displays with Santa always in one of them. Their windows also had motorized displays that you could activate by pressing your hand on a panel on the outside of the window. When I was a kid, I lived in a small town and J C Penny’s was the only corporate chain store but we had many locally owned shops.

It merged into Federated, which continued running chains under their original identities until a decade or two ago, when they deciddd to rebrand all of them as Macy’s. They’re very much still around, although they moved out of downtown Seattle thereafter.

As they say in New Orleans - “ain’t dere no more.”

Gibsons similar to Walmart 50+ plus years ago. Charmingly cluttered like todays Dollar General.

We had a small one in my little Kansas town, I bought a lot of record albums there...

The Fayetteville store was on College Avenue, the Springdale store was in a shopping center just off Thompson Avenue, and the Rogers store was on South 8th Street. I remember getting some Mighty Mites firecrackers at the F'ville store, a Monster Magnet at the S'dale store, and an LP record at the Rogers store After that, Gibson's became Howard's, and then Howard's just kind of faded away

Gibson's was trying to compete with a local mom-and-pop shop called Wal-Mart Discount City, and local residents were placing bets on which store would come out on top. I doubt that anyone back then imagined that Wal-Mart would get as big as it did

Two dime stores, two hardware stores, two shoe stores, three pharmacies (two with soda fountains), two barber shops, three clothing stores, two jewelry stores, 4 gas stations, 3 supermarkets, one bookstore, one seed store. There was also a Sears catalog order store (which burned down). And all of those stores are long gone

Had lunch at Mr Quick across the highway. My grandmother and her sisters all said they could have married Sam Walton. Gibsons was so bad it was good. And there was the Pizza Hut down the highway near Gibsons which had a basement were the bar was. Geez Louise I had a helluva time.

And I remember Mr. Quick's 19cent hamburgers. And Dog 'n Suds, where "Dad from Springfield" uttered those immortal words, "Six root beers. Six coney dogs"

It is on the sight of a drive in movie which operated at least into the early 70s. I got a half hour for lunch so Mr Quick was cheap and convenient, and I thought good for fast food.

Was the by-pass built by then? I think the by-pass was opened in 1972 or so, around the time the NWA Mall was opened.

Bon-Ton, K-mart, RadioShack, Schultz's, Fisher's Big Wheel and On Cue.

You're welcome

beautiful displays.

Lerner, Five and Dime, Gilmore, JC Penney, Robert Hall. There were several shoe stores named after shoe brands but I don’t remember the names now.

Mother would buy their god awful hoagies to eat when we came back home. I would take all the mystery meat off and have a vegetarian sub.

friends and I would go swimming at a local hotel when we were tweens and then go to ogilvies for french fries.

The Fair Store, Goldblatt's. Marshall Fields windows. We would stop at a small store for freshly made Carmel Corn. The Walnut Room in Marshall Fields. Skating, the Chicago Tribunes 'Silver Skates'.

They had a special area for children to buy for their parents. The doorway was only 3 feet high and only children and a few store advisors were allowed in. You went in with a little cash (nothing was over about five dollars, which at that time was high end for most children) and came out with a completely gift-wrapped and tagged item for under the tree. The parents had no idea until Christmas what their present was going to be. It was really special.

After we moved across state, we went to Minneapolis to see the Dayton's Christmas exhibit, but I don't remember shopping there. My parents did, but we just wandered and watched. Mostly wandered.

Great toy dept. for a kid, back in its own corner of the store...We always got popcorn and a soda on the way out...The company sponsored the "Santa's Workshop" show on local TV station, on daily in Dec. The show had a little talking puppet they called KAKE Man (after the station name). They later changed the puppet's name to Toy Boy...He was always pushing a particular product which he and Santa would play with...as an adult in my 30s I worked with a guy who did the voice of KAKE Man, woo hoo. I tried but couldn't get him to do the voice...oh well...

And on Thanksgiving Day, we would watch the then-national coverage of all four Thanksgiving Parades - the Detroit one, of course, but also Macy's in New York, Gimbel's in Philadelphia, and Eaton's in Toronto. They'd switch between all four.

It was a big deal and it's still a little shocking to me that those days are gone forever. It all seemed so permanent. Now the only one with an original sponsor is Macy's, and their parade is more like an ad for Broadway, at least the part they show on TV.

Pittsburgh had one today. But it is put on by, I think , KDKA.

The J. L. Hudson Company department store, on Woodward avenue in downtown Detroit.

In Pittsburgh. We'd also go to Murphy's Mart, Claber's, or David Weis for stuff, too.

Stewart's
Hutzlers
Hochschild Kohn
Luskins
Acme
Read's

It had an ice cream fountain, you could get a hot fudge sundae and then pop a balloon to see how much you had to pay. Maybe 49 cents, maybe ten cents, maybe free! They had candy cane ice cream at Christmas.

you displacedvermoter.