almost all the stores that I shopped at as a kid have disappeared

[mdmc]

could walmart be gone in my lifetime? I can probably take another 60 years on this planet. Any chance I can outlast walmart?

[hlthe2b]

1. Cockroaches survive us all...... n/t

[proud2BlibKansan]

2. I remember TG&Y

Just loved that store when I was a kid.

[Newsjock]

3. Of course, in 60 years ...

... you might fondly recall Walmart as the "American" store. :(

I'm not saying that Walmart is wonderful, but I shudder to think what hyperglobalization will bring. Honestly, as twisted as it might seem now, I think we might someday be nostalgic for Walmart.

[ColbertWatcher]

6. "we might someday be nostalgic for Walmart." I hope not. n/t

[mdmc]

39. another fear of mine

that perhaps, all in all, the bush years will be the golden years of yesterday.
grim...

[xchrom]

4. nope -- they have built a mythic ideology built on cheap america.

that american washer dryer worth 1800 -- is 'better' when built in china and sold for 800.

we don't want to pay what an item is worth anymore -- an extraordinary ditch we have dug for our selves.

[depakid]

13. Walmart- like the suburbs it preys on, is built on cheap oil

as that works out of the equation, its business model fails.

[Warpy]

5. I really miss Woolworth's.

Other dime stores were OK, but none had that wonderful dime store funk that Woolie's had. I had a full set of Woolworth's white dinnerware at one time, loved that stuff, always in stock and never changed so dropping it wasn't a big deal. I could pop in for sewing notions, cheap glassware, towels, and whatever else I needed without having to pass acres of stuff I really didn't need to find it all.

Kresge's had a better lunch counter, though.

[BrklynLiberal]

8. Woolworths came to my mind first as well.

[hlthe2b]

10. Woolworth's, Kresges, TG&Y, Rexall Drugs, Montgomery Wards,

A&P.... what others have gone forever? (lots of more recent ones, but just thinking back to the old staples from decades past)

[hlthe2b]

17. Ben Franklin, Western Auto, Howard Johnson's, Revco,

Service Merchandise, Winn-Dixie, and all the more recent ones....

[lpbk2713]

19. McCrory's, WT Grant, JM Fields, Zayre

All gone by the wayside.

[KamaAina]

42. We still have Ben Franklin out here

they're primarily crafts stores, cratfs being a fairly big deal hereabouts.

Winn-Dixie just left your area (and several others). They still exist, for instance, in NOLA.

edit: spelling

[Liberal_in_LA]

29. Gemco

[blue_onyx]

33. I went to Montgomery Wards all the time

I use to get most of my clothes from Montgomery Wards as a kid. Then the service got so bad and my mom stopped taking me there. I still remember standing at the cash register in the boys department waiting for a cashier to come help us. We eventually went over to the mens department to pay and the old woman at the checkout there complained that we were in the wrong department and this shouldn't be her responsibility. We told her there was nobody there and she said someone could've been paged for us. She reluctantly helped us. It was the rudest retail experience and we stopped going to Wards. The store closing down about 4 years later. The entire mall where the Wards was located was torn down and there's a Target and Walmart there now (of, course).

[Blue Diadem]

36. We found their customer service got really bad too.

Our family shopped there quite a bit for many years.

[Warpy]

37. When they announced they were going out of business

I went on a spree. They were the best place for undies and outerwear and I stocked up on both. I'm still wearing some of it, so you know it was quite a spree.

My kitchen stove is a Monkey Ward stove that came with the house. It's indestructible. It's not pretty, but it works. It has the only well calibrated oven I've ever had.

Their service might have sucked, but their products didn't.

[EFerrari]

38. Me, too. My cousins and I used to start out by street car from the beach

get out at Woolworth's on Market Street and loiter for an hour before we spent our allowances and proceeded to the wharf by cable car. It's probably where we all figured out how to comparison shop. lol

[BrklynLiberal]

7. Probably a lot of them disappeared BECAUSE OF Wal-mart.

They imported stuff from China and undersold American made products. I read that Tuffy bikes and Levi jeans were forced out of business due to Walmart. There have been several big companies who have gone under due to Walmart, and thousand and thousands of local stores in the towns that have allowed Walmarts to open have disappeared.

Is Walmart the worst company in the world?
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/1102-06.htm

Critics believe that Wal-Mart opens stores to saturate the marketplace and clear out the competition, then closes the stores and leaves them sitting empty.
...
In fact, only after Wal-Mart's "Buy American" ad campaign was in full swing did the company become the country's largest importer of Chinese goods in any industry. By taking its orders abroad, Wal-Mart has forced many U.S. manufacturers out of business
...
http://www.pbs.org/itvs/storewars/stores3.html

[alcibiades_mystery]

9. The old capitalists being displaced by the new capitalists

Big fucking boo hoo...

:eyes:

[Hannah Bell]

20. old boss = new boss.

[Cleita]

11. How we used to shop downtown.

There were mostly little mom and pop stores that sold everything from clothes, to hardware, to jewelry, to suitcases and shoes. Usually each block was anchored with a chain store like Newberry's, Woolworth's, Sears and Penny's, maybe a Montgomery Ward. There was always one high end Department Store usually family owned and they really had all kinds of departments on several storeys. There were little mom and pop restaurants and coffee shops sprinkled throughout. Our city of San Luis Obispo still preserves its downtown although many of the stores are chains, like the Pottery Barn, Victoria's Secret, the Gap etc.. Its main attraction is the historic Spanish era Mission. There still are some mom and pop stores sandwiched in between but not like it used to be.

I think those big box stores are probably going to go the way of the dinosaur sooner than you think.

[hlthe2b]

12. There are many reasons to return to the old world of

"walkable communities" with their shops within close proximity to homes and businesses. Health concerns combined with energy and climate change considerations (as well as quality of life) will bring some relief to the interstate exit design of city planning, with everything (big box stores) accessible only by car and where walking is prohibited by design.

[Aristus]

14. Growing up in Kentucky, we had Ayr-Way.

Just your typical mall flagship department store, a little on the cheesy side. And their commercials had a dreadful earworm: 1970's ad music with a subdued chorus singing "Ayr-Waaaaaay....Ayr-Waaaaaay....." over and over and over...

[InvisibleTouch]

15. Children's Palace is the one I think of.

Did a good bit of my toy-hunting there. It was basically a Toys'R'Us clone, but the one survived while the other didn't.

[gravity]

16. It's survival of the fittest

Walmart won.

[Hannah Bell]

21. survival of the most connected & capitalized, you mean.

the mafia is "fit" too.

[madrchsod]

18. at one time a&p controlled almost all of the food distribution in america

a&p had more market share than walmart has today......there are a few a&p stores left

[Hannah Bell]

24. # 21 US food retailer in 2007, 35th largest US overall retailer 2005.

The Tengelmann Group is a holding company based in Mülheim an der Ruhr.

The corporation has the following daughter companies:

A&P Tea Company (USA) with 456 branches.

Kaiser’s Tengelmann AG, 718 retail outlets.

KiK Textilien und Non-Food GmbH, with 2,039 branches in Germany, 235 in Austria, 2 in Czech Rep. and 1 in Slovenia

OBI Bau- und Heimwerkermärkte GmbH & Co. Franchise Center KG, a DIY store chain with 340 locations in Germany and 173 in Europe.

Plus Warenhandels-GmbH (2,868 supermarkets in Germany, EDEKA acquires a 70% majority stake in Plus Germany, <1>),

Plus Österreich, Zielpunkt Warenhandels-AG (formerly Löwa, mostly badged as Zielpunkt) with 300 supermarkets in Austria. Also includes former branches of the defunct Konsum and Julius Meinl chains.

Plus Discount spol. s r. o. (Czech Republic) with 134 branches

Plus Hellas E.P.E. & Sia E.E. (Greece) with 32 branches

Plus Élelmiszer Diszkont Kft. (Hungary) with 173 branches

Plus Discount sp. z o.o. (Poland) with 183 branches sold to Jerónimo Martins

Plus Discount-Supermercados Lda. (Portugal) with 72 branches sold to Jerónimo Martins

Plus Discount Romania S.C.S. (Romania) with 48 branches

Plus Supermercados, S. A. (Spain) with 238 branches.



By my count, the holding co owns over 8000 stores.

[hlthe2b]

27. I hadn't seen an A&P in years, but apparently tons of them

left on the East Coast--especially NY and NJ. But, like you, I remember when A&P were absolutely everywhere.

[KamaAina]

43. Most remaining A&Ps have a different name, like Food Emporium

or until recently, Sav-A-Center in La.

[JDPriestly]

22. Kresge, Woolworth, Rexall, Buster Brown Shoes to name a few.

But Penny's is still around.

[RetiredTrotskyite]

23. I Sure Hope So...

I went home for my mum's funeral and noticed that our main drag shopping area, called "the Village" is all chain stores...none of the local merchants are in business any more.

[Systematic Chaos]

25. I can't begin to tell you how much I miss Zody's!

I spent so much time in that old department store when they were open during the early to mid 80s. I bought my first boom box stereo there, clothes, and after the video game crash of 1983 I spent every extra penny I could scrounge up on $5 Atari games. They also had an arcade off to the side which had a bunch of cool older games for a nickel, as well as newer games and pinball for a quarter.

I will never forget that wonderful store. Now it's some fucked up indoor swap meet. :puke:

[Winnipegosis]

26. Ineresting, same here...

It's seems inevitable that as cities got (and continue to get) bigger, stores got bigger as well.

[lib2DaBone]

28. All the good places are gone. I used to love Cherry Cokes in the fancy glass

[keroro gunsou]

31. try this:

you can order them online here:

http://www.sprecherbrewery.com/soda.php

gotta scoot down, it's near the bottom of the page. even so, order the other sodas too, you won't be disappointed.

[keroro gunsou]

30. i miss

my local grocery store... the owners were the coolest family... i told them when i was old enough i wanted to work there... in the candy aisle... ok i was 5 at the time... what did i know. i grew up swapping recipe ideas with the owner's wife, since she worked the deli... the sandwich ideas we worked out were... gastronomic nightmares that would have sent dagwood bumstead into seizures... the owner's sister was the bakery manager and we swapped ideas too... she even made one of my ideas for my birthday cake one year when my mom ordered me one... memories...

[Kingofalldems]

32. G C Murphy's

I believe there is still one left though.

[Blue Diadem]

35. I remember that store. n/t

[Blue Diadem]

34. Ames, Harts, Bargain Barn(Rink's), Arlans, Grants, Woolworths,

Hills, Montgomery Ward, Woolco are all gone. Some of the buildings still stand empty. Most recently, Value City, another department store closed up.

Walmart could disappear or at least not be as dominant as it is. I've seen Sears lose it's #1 spot and K-mart lose their #1 spot and now one owns the other.

[TahitiNut]

40. Ah-hah! So you're the one to blame, huh?

That ol' reverse-Midas touch, huh?

:dunce:

[mdmc]

41. I did what I could do.

but still, the future overran me..

[NNN0LHI]

44. Yes Walmart could be gone in out lifetime. Hell they could easily be gone next year

Only one thing that I am completely sure of any more. Anything that in the past I was complete sure of how it was supposed to work doesn't necessarily work that way any more. That I am sure of.

Don