Baltimore's Bygone Department Stores by Michael J. Lisicky

Author:Michael J. Lisicky
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing Inc.
Published: 2012-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

The interior of Stewart’s York Road, as seen in December 1982. Special Collections, University of Maryland Libraries.

From its locations in a struggling downtown to the small, awkward Westview branch to a working-class mall location to a stylish suburban branch that courted well-heeled shoppers, Stewart’s did not have a consistent image. The store carried quality merchandise, but its corporate management team in New York wouldn’t commit to a specific profile. “They wanted to make us Bloomingdale’s, but they should have left us alone,” says Smith. Like many department stores across the country, Stewart’s was unable to capture the youth market. It played an old-fashioned, somewhat stuffy role “that just wasn’t right” in Baltimore. By the mid-1970s, Stewart’s was number four in sales out of Baltimore’s four department stores. As columnist Jacques Kelly reflects on the downtown stores, he says, “Hutzler’s, Hochschild’s and Hecht’s were always quite busy. Stewart’s never seemed terribly busy.”66 In some ways, that was its blessing. In other ways, it was its curse.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.