Christmas at Macy's Herald Square, 1962

Hope that everyone is having a great Christmas Eve! Today was
unusual (read: awesome) for me in that I didn’t have to do any last-minute
Christmas shopping, save for a few items from the grocery store.



One thing’s for sure, though – if I could shop in a store like
the one pictured above, I wouldn’t have minded a bit!



This, of course, is the renowned R.H. Macy & Co.
flagship store

A Jewel of a Thanksgiving

Picture this:  you’re
seven years old, and living in an apartment complex with indoor corridors. One
fine November morning as you step outside to leave for school, you notice a
newspaper with your Mom’s picture on the front page, sitting on every doorstep.
Well, that’s exactly what happened to me in November of 1970.



It wasn’t a newspaper in this case, of course, but rather a
weekly

Dominick's on TV in the 70's

“And if you’re looking for squid…”



I thought these would make nice companion pieces to the
Dominick’s post from last week. Three early 70’s-vintage TV commercials for Dominick’s,
shown here courtesy of Rick Klein’s incredible Museum of Classic Chicago Television ("Fuzzy Memories")website. Believe me, anyone who grew up in Chicago in the late 20th
century could while away days there, and

The Dynamic Dominick's

Last Thursday, a couple of longtime PFS friends clued me in on some important breaking retail news from Chicago, before I noticed it in the business headlines myself. Dominick’s Finer Foods, the number two traditional supermarket chain in Chicago, is being put up for sale by its owner of the last fifteen years, Safeway. 

That night, I put up a few comments

Turn-Style, Mom and Me

Store sale flyers. Every week, tons of these things show up –
crammed in the mailbox, stuffed in the Sunday paper, sliding out onto the
living room floor. Do people ever save these things? I certainly don’t.   



Well, except for this one, that is, and not for the reasons
you’d think. Mod 70’s styles at crazy 70’s prices. A long gone classic discount
chain, Turn-Style, and a great

The Modern Side of J.C. Penney

“Picked at random, a single J.C. Penney Co. store can be a remarkably unimpressive establishment.” So went the opening line of a long and generally laudatory September 1950 Fortune magazine article about the then nearly 50-year old retailer. The statement was true enough of the majority of J.C. Penney stores of the day. While certainly not unpleasant, a “low-key handsomeness” was about the

Remembering Korvette's Eugene Ferkauf

Last year saw the passing of one of the most influential
figures in retailing history, one who deserves more recognition than he
receives today, I’m afraid. Eugene Ferkauf, founder of the legendary E.J.
Korvette chain of promotional department stores, passed away on June 5, 2012 in
New York City at the age of 91.



In the early sixties, Ferkauf found himself the subject

What's in a Name?

Not long ago it dawned on me that throughout this site’s
existence, over six years now, I’ve never taken the time to explain the origin
of its name. You see, the phrase “Pleasant Family Shopping” is associated with
my earliest retail memories – it’s among my earliest memories of any kind, in
fact.



From 1962 through the mid-70’s, the phrase appeared on the
facade of nearly all Jewel-Osco

Happy New Year!

All right, so this one might be a little obvious- a photo
showing a “Happy New Year” sign for a New Year’s Day post, but I like it a lot.
This photo, a 1985 original snapshot, depicts the tri-faced tower sign for the
Macomb Mall in Roseville, Michigan, a northeast suburb of Detroit, an area
where cool shopping center signs were the order of the day, it seems. When the
photo was taken, the