Detroit's department stores

**DetroitPlanner** · December-04-09, 03:18 PM

Actually the Saks still stands as does the replacement for the New Center Branch of the Crowley's in New Center One. Hughes and Hatcher's flagship still stands, but has been modified extensively. It is now Hockeytown! Himelhoch's stands too!

**Fury13** · December-04-09, 04:11 PM

Originally Posted by DetroitPlanner

Actually the Saks still stands as does the replacement for the New Center Branch of the Crowley's in New Center One. Hughes and Hatcher's flagship still stands, but has been modified extensively. It is now Hockeytown! Himelhoch's stands too!

None of those were really department stores; they were high-end apparel stores. I guess the Himelhoch's building is the closest structure we have left to one of those grand downtown retail palaces.

**DetroitPlanner** · December-04-09, 05:22 PM

Originally Posted by Fury13

None of those were really department stores; they were high-end apparel stores. I guess the Himelhoch's building is the closest structure we have left to one of those grand downtown retail palaces.

I guess I am not understanding your arguement. These were all multi story retail establishments with elavators or escalators. They all sold a variety of dry goods. Granted these were not huge stores like Hudson's, Crowley's, Sam's, Mabley's, Endicot Johnson, or Kern's; but they were big compared to anything found in the suburbs or smaller cities. Would you not consider Lord and Taylor to be a dapartment store? How about Needless Mark-ups? Are department stores only places like Walmart, Meijer, and Kmart?

**Meddle** · December-05-09, 02:04 AM

Originally Posted by DetroitPlanner

Himelhoch's stands too!

Originally Posted by Fury13

I guess the Himelhoch's building is the closest structure we have left to one of those grand downtown retail palaces.

Worked there for a while through one of those temporary job service agencies. Don't remember too much about it. Everything we received got marked up 100%. If the invoice showed an item at $50, the price tag we printed was $100.

**reddog289** · December-05-09, 02:43 AM

Altough I don't shop at the Dept stores, Well maybe Sears for tools. I do miss the Downtown Hudsons. Yet when I see the postings that state if Hudsons, Crowleys, Etc had never built in the burbs their Downtown locations would not have closed. I think the void would have been filled. Detroit is not Manhatten. It built out instead of up.
Was there ever a Sears, Wards, or Federals downtown?. When Detroit was at the 2 milion mark people needed to live somewhere therefore they moved farther away from downtown. The retailers were smart and followed the money. It took almost 30 years after Northland opened for the Downtown Hudsons to close.
I was there for the last Christmas, My Cousins kept shoving me off the elevator on every empty floor. That was not my best memory of the building.I used to like the State St Marshall Fields in Chicago, Not that I bought anything, But it reminded me of Hudsons.
Take also into account of the theft that went on. If that Downtown store had the most and it wasn't profitable to do business there, then no wonder the plug was yanked. Sorta like many other stores in the city.

**sumas** · December-05-09, 06:57 AM

I believe that the store that housed Franklin Simon on the west side of Woodward still stands and the building that housed Winkelmans on the east side of Woodward still stands.

I worked for Hudsons in the seventies as a buyer. Our stores were demarcated as A, B. C or D stores based on volume of sales. Downtown was a low B store so sales were there up to the end. When Hudsons merged with Dayton it was the beginning of the end. Hudsons had a doctor and nurse on staff and a fleet of taxis on standby. I was at Northland and took ill. The personnel manager insisted I take a cab home [[I lived on the eastside) on the company bill. He predicted I was pregnant and he was right.

Hudsons was supposed to build a new store where the Kern block is but Dayton pulled the plug on that. It is sad that when headquarters are located out of state they don't have a corporate culture of community spirit. They dumped the parade too.

**sumas** · December-05-09, 07:15 AM

Theft wasn't a factor for Downtown closing, our shrink factor was well within acceptable bounds. Shrink is caused by theft, damaged goods unaccounted for and just plain bad paper flow. Northland was the major theft loss store. Before leaving Hudsons for good our inventory came in at 9.6%. Very unacceptable! I was assigned to head downtown to the accounts payable dept. to look for bad paper for my division. I found 10 million dollars in bad payment/paperwork alone.

I haven't been in a Dayton, Fields or Macy store since I left many years ago. I prefer to shop at local stores or at least franchises that are local owned and run. One year for Christmas I bought all my gifts at Wild Birds Unlimited in GP. Great store.

**Danny** · May-12-12, 01:37 PM

Dave Bing on Detroit's department stores

"When I was a kid my parents and my friends used to hang out at JL Hudson's Dept. Store, Kern's, Crowley's and Federal's. They have best displays of fashions, products, sweet goodies and held super sale events and parades. When JL Hudson close Downtown Detroit wasn't the same. So other small retail close the following year and half of Downtown Detroit look like a ghostown. We may have no dept store, but Downtown Detroit finally have Compureware."