Closing Time: The Archdiocese of Philadelphia announced last week that it will be closing four of its high schools and 44 (out of 156) elementary schools, shocking the local Catholic community.

Monsignor Bonner and Archbishop Prendergast, West Catholic (my dad, many of my uncles and cousins and friends graduated from there), St. Hubert and Conwell Egan high schools will be closing at the end of the school year in June. St. Hubert High School for Girls opened back in 1941. I dated several young ladies from St. Hubie's in the early 1960s.

Officials also confirmed that ... (more >>>)

The Ghosts Of Department Stores Past: Recently, I was reading 'Willow Grove Park', a book about the famous Philadelphia-area amusement park.

One of the photo captions noted that, "a Snellenburg's store was opened in October 1953. Additional shops later opened along the remainder of the block. ... The row of stores was known as the Willow Grove Shopping Center."

I hadn't thought of Snellenburg's in years.

Snellenburg's flagship store on Market St. - Philadelphia

Once upon a time, people did much of their shopping at department stores, emporiums selling different kinds of merchandise organized into separate departments with their own accounting. The first such store, Le Bon Marché, opened in Paris in the 1850s.

The concept quickly spread to England and the United States. John Wanamaker's was the first department store in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and one of the first department stores in the United States. The store was the first department store with electrical illumination (1878), with a telephone (1879) and the first retail store to install pneumatic tubes to transport cash and documents (1880). Starting in 1946, Wanamaker's offered a kiddie monorail for tots during the Christmas season. It ran on ceiling-mounted track system, giving children a bird's eye view of the toy department.

New technologies, especially mass transportation, made city department stores possible as trolleys, elevated rail lines, and subways brought massive numbers of shoppers to 'downtowns'. These establishments became one-stop shopping emporiums, selling clothing, sundries, furniture, cosmetics and even toys. If an item was to large to carry home on the trolley or subway, most department stores would gladly deliver it right to your door, using their own fleets of trucks and vans.

Wanamaker's was, by most accounts, the fanciest store in Philadelphia. Gimbels and Strawbridge & Clothier fought for second place. The lower tier was filled by Lit Brothers and Snellenburg's - its slogan was 'The Thrifty Store for Thrifty People'. Snellenburg's was also a wholesale clothing manufacturer, established in 1869. At one time, it was the largest clothing manufacturer in the world employing 3,000. The company had a factory outlet where it "sold directly from the workroom to the wearer, allowing clothing to be sold for lower prices."

In addition to its flagship store on 12th and Market Sts. (opened in 1889), not far from Wannamaker's, Snellenburg's had multiple locations, including stores in the Philadelphia suburbs and a location in downtown Wilmington, Delaware.

Snellenburg's closed in 1962. The six-story flagship store at 12th and Market was subsequently cut down to the present two-story building and redeveloped as part of the Reading Terminal project. The suburban stores were taken over by Lit's. The Lit Brothers chain closed in 1977.

By the 1970s, department stores were in decline, as discounters, malls and big-box stores offered wider selections at lower prices and with lower fixed costs. Additionally, more new competitors moved in from other cities. In 2006, NY-based national chain Macy's came to Philly's Market Street, moving into the store built by John Wanamaker.

The interior court of the former Wanamaker's store on Market Street still features the Grand Organ acquired from the St. Louis World's Fair of 1904. Now that Wanamaker's is just a memory, the famous Wanamaker's eagle has become the Macy's eagle.

"Meet me at the eagle," is a phrase still well known to Philadelphians.

In many cities, department stores and many other retail establishments are becoming a thing of the past, as consumers abandon traditional brick and mortar structures and buy online. (posted 1/5/12, permalink)

Still Around: My wife recently showed me an article in the 'Temple Review', her alumnae magazine, about some School of Pharmacy graduates who now work at Sun Ray drugstores.

I didn't realize this drug chain still existed. Stores can still be found in the Delaware Valley, New Jersey and New York. I probably haven't set foot in a Sun Ray drugstore in 40 years.

I wonder - does Sun Ray still sell toys at Christmas? Or offer beach toys during the summertime? Or have a TV tube tester in the corner of every store like they used to?

Sun Ray Drug Co. is oldest pharmacy chain in Philadelphia. Sun Ray operated 65 drugstores by 1945 and 147 by 1953. In the 1960s, the firm peaked with over 150 stores. (posted 11/15/11, permalink)