Woolworth's

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rich
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Post by rich »

Woolworth stores with a basement were mostly pre-WWII construction. I saw them almost exclusively in urban or small town downtown stores and rarely, if ever, in suburban shopping centers.
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Daniel
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Post by Daniel »

An exception to that would be the store in the Fashion Fair Mall in Fresno, Ca. It was built in the 70's along with the rest of the mall, but had a basement level with the pet dept, some clothing, toys, and the music dept. down there. When Woolworth's closed, the basement level disappeared. At my old job, we once got in a discussion about whatever happened to the basement of Woolworth's. Most of the suggestions were silly, though.
Jeff
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Post by Jeff »

one of the weirdest Woolworths stores to be subdivided was the one in the Galleria at Tyler in Riverside.

when Woolworths first closed, CAL stores took this space over (a sporting good chain from San Diego), and kept both levels open. This venture did not last too long.

Then the mall level subdivided the space and took out the stairs to the basement, but redid the stairs at the back of the store, with outside access. Today, this is still the configuration. Tuesday Morning took over the basement level, but has no access to the mall above it. You literally have to walk outside the mall then down the escalators in the back of the mall (which are under the food court)
Dean
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Post by Dean »

Jeff wrote:back to the topic at hand.........

I am trying to remember if the Woolworths in Montebello had a basement level. I know that the Newberrys Monterey Park did and most Woolworths had a basement level.
The former Montebello Woolworths in the current (new) VONS center? I don't remember one...could be wrong tho.

What is the current tenant in there?
Jeff
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Post by Jeff »

The current tenant is an Anna's Linens (awfully large for an Anna's, btw).

I know this store did have a lunch counter, along the north wall (closest to Vons), but I can't remember if it had a basement.
umtrr-author
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Post by umtrr-author »

I am pretty sure that the Woolworth's in the Menlo Park Mall in Edison, New Jersey had a basement level. Menlo Park was built fairly early and was a combination outdoor/indoor mall for a while. It's been almost totally rebuilt now and moved quite upscale.

I also believe that the one in downtown Perth Amboy, New Jersey had a basement as well. I think it would fit the pre-war construction comment very easily.

There is a former Woolworth's in downtown Scranton, Pennsylvania, across from the Mall at Steamtown, that doesn't look that much different now versus then.

The last Woolworth's I set foot in was in Burlington, Vermont and it would have been August 1997 as my son Kieran was not yet walking.
tkaye
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Post by tkaye »

Dean wrote:I also remember when Ralphs changed their logo from script to bold printed letters in the mid-80s. I noted this to a friend. Her reply, "Who cares!?"
Some people are just boring, aren't they?! Life is full of details to be observed.

Getting back to Woolworth's, does anyone remember some sort of contest in association with their chainwide GOOB sale in 1997? (There was at the store in Bremerton, Wash., at least.) My memory is kind of foggy, but I remember a prize board in the store. I think there were points that could be accumulated and a television set was the top reward. I've never heard of any other liquidation sale having something like that.

I recall quite a bit of newspaper coverage leading up to the closure as well... in Bremerton, the store dated back to around 1940, I believe. Many of the employees had been there 30 years or more and were included in one of the local paper's write-ups. After closing for the last time, a going-away party was held in the store that evening. Was this pretty commonplace around the country?
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buckhead
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Post by buckhead »

Athens, Georgia had 2 stores, 1 built in the 60's in a shopping center and 1 downtown which was much older. It had entrances off of 2 parallel streets stretching across the middle of a block. The upper "main" entrance floor had the lunch counter, a big staffed candy case with those giant Hershey bars they sold by the chunk, etc., stationery, toys, clothing, photo booth, restrooms, fish and turtle tanks, pet birds, and rodents, hobby items (stamps, coins, model airplanes and cars, etc.), some gift items, and a few other departments. If you walked down the interior stairwell to the lower floor you would encounter kitchen items, dishes, ceramics, and things of that sort among others as well as utility and storage areas. Technically the back portion of that lower floor was buried in the hill upon which the whole block of stores was built. As such it had sort of a musty smell and always seemed cooler back there in the hot days of summer. So maybe this location qualified as having a basement. I'm not sure of the age of the building, but it maybe have predated World War 2. The façade was (and still is a yellowish tan brick). It had those later but classic plastic oversize red F. W. Woolworth letters on the outside. Over the years a number of the stores downtown were updated in the 50's and 60's, sometimes as a result of fires, or just being a new tenant. Anyway, I always liked that store, and I, like so many others, if not shopping there, would often enter just to get from one street through to the other without having to navigate hundreds of feet aroung the block. Lots of stores in Athens had rear and front entrances like that. If one wanted to get from the Washington street you could cut though McGregors, Gallant-Belk, Kress, McClellan's etc. to get to Clayton Street, and then through Woolworth's, J. C. Penney, Davison's (sort of), Ernest Crimes, or Economy Auto to get to West Broad Street. I guess I never thought about it as cutting through the basement (in some cases) of these buildings. The exterior and interior detail of some of these stores although modified over the years was quite impressive.
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Groceteria
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Re: Woolworth's

Post by Groceteria »

As of today, the fiftieth anniversary of the beginning of the sit-in movement on 1 February 1960, my hometown Woolworth store in Greensboro NC (where the sit-ins began) is now home to the International Civil Rights Center & Museum:

Website for the museum: http://www.sitinmovement.org/

Vintage photos of the store from Civil Rights Greensboro: http://library.uncg.edu/dp/crg/item.aspx?i=1334 and http://library.uncg.edu/dp/crg/item.aspx?i=1158

Photo of the museum I took this morning: http://www.flickr.com/photos/otherstream/4323218362/

News coverage with video: http://www.digtriad.com/news/local/stor ... 6&catid=57

I was not able to go inside the museum (opening day was sold out) but I could see from the door that the original flooring is still there in the lobby. I've also been told that the historic section of the lunch counter is still in its original spot.
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BK31
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Re: Woolworth's

Post by BK31 »

Speaking of lunch counters and basements on a recent as built survey I had to do for work I got a hold of a great old set of drawings of a Shopping Center in Columbus, GA near Fort Benning originally anchored by a Colonial and a Woolworths. The old blueprints were actually in decent shape, and were dated 1954. The set was mostly for the strip center shops but there was an overall plan of the Colonial with exterior elevations and there maybe four sheets out of the Woolworths set, the best being a shop drawing by the Bastian-Blessing Company of the original lunch counter. Something very neat to take a look at. The Woolworth's drawings showed the basement complete with a section at the conveyor, an exterior elevation, the plans showed the departments and even segregated toilets which is the first time I've come across that while working since most of the places they have me go are maybe 10-20 years old.

The Woolworths looks to have been long ago chopped up into smaller retail spaces and the Colonial was still one store, CitiTrends clothing, but it looks like the inside had been gutted a few times and has had multiple tenants over the years. Some of the various tenants I'm told have been Western Auto and a large dry cleaners, but the old incinerator and smoke stack along with most of the original canopies are out back yet.
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