This too is Yonkers- By Eric Schoen
Did you know that Younckers closed in 2018? No, not that Yonkers, the one we all love and many of us call home. I’m referring to Younckers, the department store with roots in Iowa and bordering states founded by three Polish Jewish immigrant brothers Lipman, Samuel, and Marcus Younker who opened a general store in Keokuk, Iowa, in 1856.
As the fate of Sears breathes down our neck, let’s look at some of the stores we loved that have closed over the years. But I have to start off by talking about Sears and why my family were not big Sears shoppers like most American families were.
Before Sears took over the old Wanamaker’s store in the Cross County Mall, the closest Sears to Yonkers was in White Plains in the store recently vacated by Walmart and currently housing Burlington Coat factory. In order to get into that store you had to enter via a parking ramp that went round and round like a roller coaster.
Mom hated going up or down the roller coaster like ramps leading into the parking lot which is the reason we didn’t frequent Sears that often. Not only did (and do) the parking lot ramps go round and round but they are also very narrow. Mom preferred pulling into the open parking lot at Cross County Shopping Center, the open lot at B. Altman’s or Bloomingdales in White Plains or later the Galleria lot which was simpler to get into like the parking lots of stores along Central Ave such as Caldors, Kleins, Alexanders or E.J. Korvettes.
I never remember mom or my grandmother getting the Sears Wish Book, the gigantic catalog families received in August or September allowing them to select Christmas and Chanukah gifts. Mom and my maternal grandmother liked to physically shop in department stores where they could see, feel and try on clothes they were buying to make sure everything fit perfectly.
I remember our Saturday trips to Fordham Road in the Bronx when I was young which would start off at Alexander’s Department store (the Yonkers one opened much later) and end up after a coffee break at Twin Donuts at Loehman’s. It was at Loehman’s that mom and grandma could buy designer goods at bargain prices. Since they had no enclosed booths in the fitting room and it was a wide open space they could obtain the opinions of strangers on the couture they were considering to wear to the next Bar Mitzvah or family engagement.
This open door fitting room kind of freaked me out. And the curtain would always be semi-open. God forbid I would walk by the fitting room or stand too close the ladies would have a nervous breakdown and someone would comment ‘move away from the curtain.’ I could be a mile away from the curtain and someone would say something to the fitting room attendant. It wasn’t just me who would get scolded it was most men in the store. And No, these women were not Miss America Pageant Contestants!
I think women thought Loehman’s was ‘their’ store and men did not belong in it. That was of course until Loehman’s started carrying men’s clothing in their stores.
While on Fordham road and speaking of Alexander’s, that was one truly amazing store. No matter if it was Fordham Road in the Bronx, Central Avenue in Yonkers or Routes 17 and 4 in Paramus, New Jersey the secret to shopping at Alexanders would be to look for the crowds of people grabbing merchandise from the square shaped white tables with drawers underneath and joining them in search of a bargain. A bargain of course in the right size (or as close as you could get) of the member of the family you were shopping for.
Wanamaker’s. Before they closed the only one outside of Philadelphia was in good ol’ Yonkers. A store that guaranteed the quality of its’ merchandise in print, allowed customers to return purchases for a cash refund and invented the price tag. What would shopping be like today if items didn’t have price tags on them that you could scan to find the current, lowest price. They need to invent an app on the phone that you can take into any department store to scan your purchase and automatically know the current price.
Innovation and “firsts” marked Wanamaker’s. The store was the first department store with electrical illumination (1878), first store with a telephone (1879), and the first store to install pneumatic tubes to transport cash and documents (1880).
Wanamaker’s offered its employees access to the John Wanamaker Commercial Institute, as well as free medical care, recreational facilities, profit sharing plans, and pensions—long before these types of benefits were considered standard in corporate employment. Certainly way before Obamacare!
The first restaurant to be located inside a department store was in Wanamaker’s. The Wanamaker’s store in Philadelphia had a restaurant that overlooked the department store. Nothing beat having lunch in a fancy department store. Tea time was my favorite with scones with clotted cream, tea sandwiches with their crusts cut off and of course, brewed tea or a selection from the tea chest. In Yonkers the restaurant was on the 3rd floor. I hear you can sneak up and see the remnants!
Restaurants were common in Department Stores. Lord & Taylor in Eastchester had The Birdcage where to encourage men to shop with their wives or women to shop with their sons the male members of the party were offered 2 desserts. All the selections would be brought to your table on a glistening silver cart and a waitress dressed in uniform would use silver serving utensils to serve you your choices.
When talking about stores that have closed I could go on for days. How about Genung’s and than Howland’s in Getty Square. I used to love going into the old Library which went in the Genung’s/Howland’s building and riding the old service elevators requiring an attendant to go up and down to the various floors. In the basement instead of children’s coats on the racks (you would need a stick with a hook on it to reach coats on the top racks) there would be glorious children’s books, many so high up you would need someone tall to fetch them for you!
It’s fun to take a stroll down memory lane. Let’s hope the powers that be can keep the doors open so that the Kenmore appliances and Craftsman tools can keep flowing to consumers who know and trust a good product and value, something they have for over 125 years counted on Sears for. I promise we will take this path again!
Reach Eric Schoen at thistooisyonkers@aol.com. Follow him on Twitter @ericyonkers. Listen to Eric Schoen and Dan Murphy on the Westchester Rising Radio Show Thursday’s from 10-11 a.m. On WVOX 1460 AM or download the SIMPLE RADIO app for free from the APP STORE.
