Remembering Long Island’s notable department stores of the past

Long-gone department stores like Ohrbach’s, Gimbels, E.J. Korvette, Times Square Stores and others sold us our prom dresses, our first big-boy shoes, our refrigerators, toys, TVs and riding mowers. Department stores still exist today, of course, but more often than not, they’re upscale emporiums — and we generally go to specialty outlets for, say, sports equipment or electronics. The days of popping into a Long Island Woolworth’s, McCrory’s or Sears for a transistor radio or a coffeepot are a thing of the past.

There are probably a few dozen fabled department stores we could name — every family had their regular go-to. Here’s a look back at five representative ones Long Islanders still remember.

ABRAHAM & STRAUS

Abbreviated as A&S, the venerable chain aimed to be more affordable than Bloomingdale’s or Macy’s, though not as inexpensive as Alexander’s or Korvette’s. Founded in Brooklyn in 1865 as Wechsler & Abraham, it took its later, long-standing name in 1893. A&S branched out to Long Island on Oct. 2, 1950, taking over the Garden City site of a Frederick Loeser & Co. store on Franklin Avenue.

A&S outlets followed on Fulton Avenue in Hempstead (1952); the Great South Bay Shopping Center in West Babylon (1957); Walt Whitman Shops in Huntington Station (1962); Northern Boulevard in Manhasset (1965); the Smith Haven Mall in Lake Grove (1969); and Roosevelt Field in Garden City (1993). A&S additionally replaced E.J. Korvette at Sunrise Mall in Massapequa in 1982 and Gimbels at Green Acres in Valley Stream in 1987.

James Russo, 63, of Holbrook, worked at the Walt Whitman A&S, in the men’s clothing department, during the summer of 1981, and remembers fondly a fling with a woman who worked the perfume counter.    And Linda Caterino, 75, still remembers the kindness of an A&S salesperson.

“We lived in Mineola and didn’t have much money,” the Tempe, Arizona psychologist recalled of her family. “We typically shopped at Korvette’s, so going to A&S was a big deal. My mom didn’t drive so we took a bus to the A&S in Hempstead. It was the spring of 1967 and I needed a dress coat for Easter. We found one that was white with gold buttons. I think it might have been around $30. I tried it on and loved it and my mom bought it.”

The salesperson “watched the exchange between my mother and myself. A few days later a card appeared in the mail from her. I can still see it,” Caterino says. “She wrote that she was impressed by our interactions and hoped I would be very happy with the coat.”

A&S’ parent company, Federated Department Stores, merged with R.H. Macy & Company in 1994. The new corporation shut down all 17 A&S outlets in New York and New Jersey, converting them to either a Bloomingdale’s, Stern’s or Macy’s. The last one, at Roosevelt Field, shuttered in May 1995. It became the current Bloomingdale’s that November.

 
ALEXANDER’S

“I’m sauntering through Saks! Meandering through Macy’s! But I buy at Alexander’s!”

So sang the woman in the 1980s TV commercial for that discount chain. Alexander’s customers might have window-shopped aspirationally elsewhere but ultimately traded ambience for bargain prices — albeit, for many years, with the policy of ”no credit, no charge accounts, no deliveries and no alterations.”

Founder George Farkas grew Alexander’s, named for his father, from a single shop in the Bronx in 1928 to a 16-store chain, audaciously planting a flagship store in Manhattan right near vaunted Bloomingdale’s in 1965.

He opened two outlets on Long Island. The first, on Sunrise Highway in Valley Stream, adjacent to but not part of Green Acres Mall, boasted 30 glass-and-steel murals by British artist Stefan Knapp. Sen. Jacob K. Javits was among the dignitaries scheduled to appear at the ribbon-cutting in September 1967.

Long Island’s second Alexander’s opened in October 1971, at Roosevelt Field in Garden City, a new construction in what had been one of the mall’s parking lots. It closed in January 1991, with A&S moving in until being replaced by Bloomingdale’s in 1995.

The Alexander’s in Valley Stream lasted a little longer, through May 1992, when the chain filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, and briefly reopened for an inventory sale. Today, it’s a Target store.

Alexander’s did emerge from bankruptcy in 1993 — but solely as a real estate concern, continuing today, its days of retail ended.
 

MAYS

Like Alexander’s, Mays catered to the working and middle classes. “They were in our price range,” remembers Smithtown’s Kathy Kortmann, 70, who grew up in North Massapequa. “I grew up in a very big family so we didn’t have a lot of money, so we never went to places like Macy’s or A&S — that was out of our range. My mother loved Mays. Oh my God, she was so sad when it left.”

Joe Weinstein founded Mays in Brooklyn in 1924. He eventually expanded to Queens and, in October 1955, Long Island, with a store on Hempstead Turnpike in Levittown. Another followed on Sunrise Highway in Massapequa Park in April 1963, shortly before his death. A final Long Island store opened in August 1968, at Five Towns Shopping Plaza in Woodmere.

“I used to work in Mays in Massapequa,” Kortmann says. “And I got my prom dress there. Nowadays, forget it,” she adds, chuckling at the idea of any trendy teen buying a gown at a department store. “We would be embarrassed to admit it!”

Mays had grown to nine stores by the time it declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy in January 1982. The three Long Island outlets closed not long afterward. The Levittown location is now Tri-County Bazaar. Kohl’s occupies the Massapequa Park site. It’s unclear today which of the many stores in the Five Towns Shopping Plaza is that which once held Mays.

ARNOLD CONSTABLE

It was the oldest department store chain in America, originating as Aaron Arnold’s Manhattan dry goods shop 200 years ago this year. Growing under various iterations, it became Arnold Constable & Company in 1853, settling its flagship store on Fifth Avenue at 40th Street in 1914.

After opening a second store in Westchester County in 1937, Arnold Constable debuted the first of its two Long Island outlets, on Fulton Avenue in Hempstead, in March 1940. Village mayor George M. Estabrook was among the opening day speakers. A second Long Island branch, which opened in December 1952, on Northern Boulevard, was credited with helping to extend the length of Miracle Mile.

The upscale stores were community pillars. They sponsored the Nassau County Annual Scholarship, awarded to high school seniors from 1940 to at least 1957. The Hempstead store flew Santa Claus in by helicopter in the 1950s. And that store also held the Miss Arnold Constable competition — initially weekly during the school year from about 1947 through 1968, by which time it was held much less often.

Chris Magilligan, 89, now of St. Louis, Missouri, remembers how the store would invite high school “senior girls chosen by the principal’s office to model on Saturday mornings. Customers voted.” Under her maiden name, Chris Chicco, the Hempstead High student became Miss Arnold Constable for one week in 1953. “All we did was walk around the store. I mean, we didn’t sell anything. We just walked around and people voted.” There were no prizes, “not even a gift certificate,” says the retired teacher. “I think it was just the idea of being chosen and getting your picture in the paper.”

The Hempstead store closed in January 1971 and is now Rainbow Shops downstairs and Retro Fitness upstairs. Occupying the Northern Boulevard spot, in what is now part of Manhasset Center, are a Nordstrom Rack and the shoe chain DSW.

S. KLEIN

Generations of New Yorkers remember the big sign reading “S. Klein on the Square” on that chain’s flagship off Manhattan’s Union Square, on a site that is now the apartment complex Zeckendorf Towers. Founded by Samuel Klein before World War I, the discount chain opened its first Long Island store in August 1955 on Hempstead Turnpike in West Hempstead. Four more would dot Long Island: at the Commack Plaza Shopping Center, 2 Veterans Memorial Highway; Green Acres Mall in Valley Stream; Lake Success Shopping Center; and as part of the 1968 renovation that enclosed Mid-Island Shopping Plaza in Hicksville to make it a mall,  now The Shops on Broadway.

Yet while the chain was doing more than $200 million in annual sales in the 1960s, it had actually shown a yearly deficit most years since 1959. In 1975, parent company Rapid-American Corp. closed it down. The Commack building was demolished and the site now houses a BJ’s Wholesale Club. The Lake Success store is now a Target containing a CVS Pharmacy. The West Hempstead store was for many years the well-known flea market Shopper’s Village and then was occupied by National Wholesale Liquidators. Development is currently underway there for the rental-apartment complex Heritage Westminster. It is unclear what stores occupy the sites of the Green Acres and Broadway locations.