The Art and History of Cermak Plaza

What in the world would ever cause a strip mall to become famous? Thousands of them have been built over the last 60 years. Because of their utilitarian nature and the relative ease of facelifting, remodeling or expanding them, a high percentage of them still stand. Over time, the "lucky ones", if such an analogy makes sense, continue to house "Class A" retailers - well-known department and specialty stores and major chain supermarkets. In others, the tenant mix has shifted to "dollar stores", off-price retailers and independent grocers. Still others are home to flea markets, thrift stores, used bookstores and the like. All serve a purpose in their communities.

But you can spruce them up, modernize them, give 'em facelifts until their ears meet, and there's not the remotest chance these things will bring fame. No, it takes something drastic. And that's exactly what happened in the case of Cermak Plaza, a circa-1956 shopping center in Chicago's near west suburbs, when it became home to some huge (and hugely controversial) modern art pieces in the 1980's.

Berwyn, Illinois, is eight miles directly west of Chicago's Loop. The physical layout of the city is very much a continuation of Chicago's perfect grid (the town of Cicero sits in between), with row upon row of two-flats, three-flats and bungalows with small but well-manicured lawns. Among the city’s streets are some major thoroughfares - Harlem Avenue and Roosevelt Road, for example, which constitute Berwyn’s western and northern borders respectively. Oak Park Avenue and 26th Street are a couple of others, and Ogden Avenue (U.S. 34), a major highway spanning from Chicago’s West Side all the way to Aurora, cuts a diagonal through Berwyn. Through the decades, the heart of town, from a retail standpoint at least, has been 22nd Street, more commonly known as Cermak Road. The road is named in honor of Anton J. Cermak, the late mayor of Chicago, who was cut down by an assassin’s bullet intended for President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt at a public appearance in Miami in 1933.

In the early 1950’s, Berwyn’s retail scene looked pretty much like that of most American cities and “inner-ring” suburbs (pretty much the only type of suburb around in the early part of the 20th century). There were usually a few major commercial strips, lined end-to-end with variety stores, butcher shops, grocery stores, single-screen theatres and all manner of specialty shops. Smaller city streets were punctuated with corner grocery stores, dry cleaners, candy shops and other mom-and-pop operations. Sometimes the major chains could also be found in corner locations off the beaten path – in the late 1920’s, for example, Berwyn boasted no less than 11 A&P stores, according to the pictorial book “Berwyn” by Douglas Deutchler. As mentioned, however, Cermak Road was the “main drag” retail-wise. In the 1950’s, the Cermak Road Business Association even issued their own trading stamps, called “Blue Stamps”, that were issued by merchants up and down the strip. I’m not sure if they were redeemable for kolaches or not.

The decade of the 1950’s saw the American shopping center come into its own. In 1949, the Urban Land Institute compiled a list of major shopping centers opened or in development at that date, arriving at a total of 67. In July 1953, there were 158 centers on the list, and in May 1957, six months after Cermak Plaza’s opening, the tally amounted to a whopping 720 shopping centers, only to grow from there. Americans had discovered a new way to shop, and they loved it.

On January 10, 1954, an article in the Chicago Tribune announced a five million-dollar shopping center to be constructed on a 30-acre site at the corner of Harlem Avenue and Cermak Road in Berwyn. The parcel was known as the “old Gage farm”, and had recently been owned by the city of Chicago, interestingly enough. The developer of the shopping center would be New York City-based National Plazas, Inc., which was headed by Emil Muller and David W. Bermant, who by that time had developed “15 similar shopping centers” in various U.S. cities. The center’s name would be “Cermak Plaza”, and it would be run by Bermant’s management company. (Five years later, National Plazas would open Mt. Prospect Plaza, just down the street from the future location of Randhurst.)The article named some prospective tenants – among others, there were Walgreens, J.C. Penney, Hillman’s Pure Foods, F.W. Woolworth, Thom McAn shoes and a “large eastern variety chain”, which turned out to be one of G.C. Murphy’s few ventures into the Chicago market. The center’s architectural design would be provided by Rochester, New York-based R.E. Van Alstyne and Anthony J. Zelenka, a local architect based in neighboring Cicero. Zelenka would also design “a new branch of J. Sterling Morton High School” (known as Morton West), which would open directly behind the shopping center.

The next two years would be fraught with problems, which started right away when a group of Berwyn residents sued to halt the project, citing traffic hazards. The lawsuit, which was originally filed by six homeowners whose property adjoined the tract, gathered the support of 1,600 petitioners within days of the project’s original announcement. In October 1955, after a grueling 21-month battle that led all the way to the Illinois Supreme Court, the plaintiffs finally dropped the suit, and the way was cleared to begin work.

While still under construction, Cermak Plaza stayed in the news in the worst possible way when it became the scene of a murder. On June 6, 1956, a masonry contractor was shot and killed while working inside the shell of the future shopping center. The assailant turned out to be his business partner, who apparently felt that the other man had cheated him out of his share of the Cermak Plaza while contract while he was out on sick leave. The Tribune reported of four eyewitnesses to the shooting. Eventually the culprit was convicted and sentenced to 99 years for the crime.

After weathering these crises and wrapping up months of construction, the opening for Cermak Plaza was finally announced for November 29, 1956, just in the nick of time for the Christmas shopping season. The center’s 21-store opening lineup included a number of national names – J.C. Penney, F.W. Woolworth, Kinney Shoes (years before they would be owned by Woolworth), Thom McAn, Lerner Shops and Walgreens – along with some well known Chicago-based chains – Jewel Food Stores, Hillman’s Pure Foods (a Jewel competitor for whom this would be their 11th store), A.S. Beck Shoes, Suburban TV and Record and the ever-popular Fannie May Candies.

In an era where gloriously over-the-top Grand Opening festivities were the norm, Cermak Plaza’s fetes certainly didn’t disappoint. The Jewel Food Store opened on November 15, two weeks before the rest of the shopping center, to a host of grand opening giveaways and contests. The most exciting of these was a free helicopter ride for a “lucky lady” each half-hour throughout the day. The first ride, according to a Tribune article captioned “She’s up in the air about shopping”, went to Mrs. Louis Filicetti of Elmwood Avenue. For her part, Mrs. Filicetti declared it was the “first time she’d been up in anything except an elevator”. Clearly, a new era of thrills had descended upon Berwyn.

Not to be outdone, the Plaza’s main festivities, held on the “official” opening day of November 29th, brought the appropriate pomp to the occasion. Close as it was to Christmas, Santa made an appearance, flanked by eight live Alaskan reindeer (top that, Marshall Field’s!). The crème de la crème, however, was a live appearance by Frankie Yankovic, “America’s Polka King!”, and his band. Never before or since has there been such a perfect match of artist and grand opening. Those of us who grew up watching far too much TV in the 70’s and 80’s would probably best know Mr. Yankovic from several K-Tel record commercials he was featured in through those years. One can only hope he changed the lyrics of “The Pennsylvania Polka” to “The Cermak Plaza Polka” on that day. I mean, please!

In April 1957, another key tenant joined the Cermak Plaza lineup when Sears, Roebuck and Co. opened a new “Class B” store there, replacing the existing Sears unit at 5938 Cermak Road in Cicero. The addition of the Sears store transformed the shopping center’s configuration into an “L-shape”, although the Sears was detached from the rest of the center. In the early 1960’s, Sears expanded their Berwyn location to add an auto center, and the plain signage was replaced with the much bolder 60’s serif version.

Interestingly, the iconic aqua and white signs with their huge, bent arrows did not appear until the shopping center was nearly two years old. In a September 25, 1958 Chicago Tribune article, a dedication ceremony for the signs was announced for 7pm that night. Today, of course, some folks would laugh at this, while others would place it on a level of importance with the signing of the Magna Carta. (I think you know where I stand.) It brings this picture to my mind – a couple at home as they’re getting ready to leave. The husband, who we’ll call Ralph, is standing impatiently in the gleaming pink-tiled kitchen on the top floor of a three-flat. “Bernice, c’mon, are we going to the dedication or what?” (Note: In this part of the world, the phrase “or what?” can be affixed to almost any sentence. It’s a figure of speech, not an actual request for alternatives.) It’s a good thing we can’t hear Bernice, but through the bathroom door I think I could make out something about Ralph’s “blankety-blank bowling night”. Meanwhile, Chester, their 13-year old son, yells up to the third-floor window from the front yard – “Hey Maa! I need two bucks – we’re goin’ for pizza! Can you hear me or what?” He’s got a handful of pebbles ready in case they didn’t hear him.

Well, it could’ve happened.

Through the balance of the 1950’s into the following decade, it would be safe to say that Cermak Plaza was king of the retail hill for its area. In the mid-1960’s, however, some competition began to enter the picture. Across Harlem Avenue from Cermak Plaza, in what would be called North Riverside Plaza, E.J. Korvette opened one of its “Korvette City” retail complexes in 1965, complete with a two-story “promotional department store”, furniture and carpet center, supermarket, and auto center. In 1967, Jewel left Cermak Plaza and moved into the Korvette supermarket space as a Jewel/Osco, where it remains to this day. (After Korvette’s demise in 1980, Kmart took over the main store. It now jointly houses a Petco and a Kohl’s store.)

The big change would come in 1975 with the opening of North Riverside Park Mall, developed by Melvin Simon and Company, just west of the Korvette complex. Prior to that, area residents would have to drive west to Oakbrook or Yorktown to shop at a “real mall”, but now the area would have one of its own. Anchored by Carson, Pirie, Scott & Co., Montgomery Ward and J.C. Penney, who would vacate their outdated 60,000 square foot Cermak Plaza location in favor of fancy new 266,000 square foot digs, North Riverside Park quickly and thoroughly stole any remaining thunder that Cermak Plaza could have claimed, including the coveted (and lucrative) role of host to community events. Service Merchandise, one of our family’s favorites, soon took over the old Penney space at Cermak Plaza.

My first exposure to Cermak Plaza came around this time, when my family moved from the Northwest suburbs to the Near West suburbs (Riverside, which is just across Harlem Avenue from Berwyn). In some ways it felt like I’d moved to another state altogether. The most striking differences, to me, were the slightly heavier Chicago accents and the strength of the ethnic traditions, particularly in older suburbs such as Berwyn, compared to the much more recently settled Northwest ‘burbs. Of course, these traditions always seem to often translate to food, and the Bohemian (Czech) baked goods and the incredible Italian food (Benny’s and Salerno’s Pizza, Novi’s Beef, Mazzone’s Italian Ice and Turano bread – yess!) soon became favorites of mine. Another way the strong sense of pride expressed itself was in the annual “Houby Day” parade, a tribute to, of all things – a mushroom. That’s right, “houby” means mushroom in Czech, and on one Saturday morning each Fall our high school band would pile into the buses and trek over to Austin Boulevard in Cicero to take our place in the parade, whose route ended at Cermak Plaza. There I was, trying to stay in step among the politicians running for office in their convertibles, garden club floats and shriners dressed as genies on flying carpet go-karts. We gave the best years of our lives to that mushroom.

One day, I noticed some scaffolding in the Cermak Plaza parking lot, surrounding what looked for all the world like a giant mud pie on a pedestal. As it turned out, what was taking place was the creation of a gigantic piece of modern art, the work of Nancy Rubins, an artist based in New York City’s Soho district. The “pork chop-shaped” sculpture, called “Big Bil-Bored”, would stand three stories tall and was embedded with the flotsam of the American consumer culture – old portable televisions, fans, bicycles, hubcaps and other debris. The work was commissioned by Cermak Plaza owner David W. Bermant, an enthusiastic, high-profile patron of modern art. When the inevitable press questions came, Bermant responded from a socio-cultural perspective one doesn’t generally expect from shopping center owners: “People can look at Nancy’s work and see their own life”, he told the Chicago Tribune in November 1980 as the sculpture neared completion. “At first I thought the plaza merchants would kill me. This piece shows the stuff they sell for what it is. But I decided to do it anyway because it was important.” (Now that’s putting the “b” in subtle!)

As you would probably expect, the community went apoplectic over the sculpture. “It’s a hunk of junk, a monstrosity”, according to one angry resident quoted in the Tribune article. “Why don’t those people do something constructive like sweeping the street instead of dirtying it up?” Judy Baar Topinka, the local state representative, weighed in on behalf on her constituents to the Berwyn/Cicero Life newspaper: “Is this the image that Berwyn wants to present to the world, a portal on a major thoroughfare? Instead of rejuvenation, revitalization, beautification and progress, the message that is being sent is that we're riding high on the scrap heap. It is, at best, the worst public relations move I have ever seen put forth.” Finally the mayor of Berwyn, Thomas Hett, conceded that due to the fact that it was on private property, little could be done. “But let me tell you, I don’t see how anyone in their right mind could have approved the thing.” In any event, Big Bil-Bored was there to stay.

My own attitude towards the sculpture was initially very negative, and I wish I could say that type of art has grown on me in the years since, although in time I kind of got a kick out of all those 1950’s-era toasters staring at me as I walked out of Walgreens or Service Merchandise. What has changed is that I’ve come to greatly admire Bermant’s courage in daring to stand out from the crowd - a bold and exciting move, worthy of note.

Over the following decade, Bermant would commission several more modern art pieces, mostly much smaller in size, for Cermak Plaza. Several of them still exist, and all are catalogued in detail on this excellent site. One that can still be seen at the Plaza is artist Dustin Shuler’s “Pinto Pelt”, which is essentially the hide of a Ford Pinto, mounted taxidermy-style, to the side of the Plaza optometrist’s shop. Given the Pinto’s unfortunate reputation, that’s probably the safest place for it.

The next large piece of modern art to appear at Cermak Plaza wasn’t a sculpture or statue, but a building. When Yankee Doodle Dandy, a Chicago-based hamburger chain, went out of business in the early 1980’s, it freed up the valuable corner parcel at the intersection of Harlem Avenue and Cermak Road. The “Home of the Dandyburger” was torn down, and in the spring of 1984, a new McDonald’s restaurant with a very unique design rose in its place. Designed by SITE, which according to a Tribune article was “an art and architecture organization known for its exploration of new ideas for the urban visual environment”, sections of the store were elevated, leading to an unusual “floating” appearance that I remember really digging. (The restaurant’s natural tan-colored brick, like that of many McDonald’s, has since been repainted in a two-tone color scheme that to me lessens the “floating” effect.) Much credit for the modern design, of course, must go to Bermant, who “encouraged them to build a restaurant that would excite interest in the center and would complement the art works that we have already placed at Cermak”.

Important Update: After publishing this post, I came across an intriguing bit of information about the 1984 “floating” McDonald’s at Cermak Plaza. I mentioned the new paint job and how it seemed to lessen the "floating" effect. I’ve never been able to put my finger on why it’s looked so different in recent years, but now I know. Simply put, it no longer floats! I discovered an article on this blog, with photos that show the former “floating” areas – they’ve been bricked in! Aaaugh! Why it was done, I don’t even want to know. For those who didn’t see the once-unique store before this happened, I feel bad.

On a happier note, I received some interesting information from Michael, a Berwyn resident as a youth, who with his family continued to visit the area years after moving away. The corner parcel, where the formerly unique McDonald's stands, was home, as mentioned, to a Yankee Doodle Dandy from the late 60’s through the early 80’s. Prior to that, according to Michael, it was a Peter Pan Snack Shop, that looked exactly like this one. The Peter Pan Snack Shops were owned by Boston-based General Drive-In, which later became General Cinema Corporation, a subject covered on this website last year.

The crowning achievement, as far as Cermak Plaza’s art works went, would have to be Spindle, built in 1989 by L.A.-based artist Dustin Shuler, who also created the Pinto Pelt. Spindle consisted of eight cars impaled on a giant metal spike, like a stack of skewered “guest checks” next to the cash register of one of Chicago’s great Greek-owned family restaurants. Even though it no longer exists, Spindle is easily the most recognized image associated with Cermak Plaza.

For his part, Bermant was ever vigilant in defending the art works he had procured for Cermak Plaza and his other shopping centers as a means of differentiation and cultural enhancement. As he told an Associated Press interviewer in 1990: “What makes it different from any other shopping center? I’ve got the same crappy merchants selling the same crappy stuff.” (Bear in mind that the “crappy merchants” who populated Bermant’s shopping centers represented a “who’s who” of American retail. I’d love to have met this guy!) David Bermant passed away in 2000 at the age of 81.

Unlike the Dixie Square Mall, being featured in a Hollywood film was not essential to Cermak Plaza’s fame, but a fleeting appearance in the 1994 comedy film Wayne’s World (based, like The Blues Brothers, on a popular Saturday Night Live sketch) did much to help spread it. For the five of you who may not know, the main characters in Wayne’s World are Wayne and Garth (played by Mike Myers and Dana Carvey), two teenage heavy metal fans from Aurora, Illinois, with their own cable access TV show, where they pontificated about music, movies and most of all, “babes”, and as Wikipedia mentions, “trick(ed) their unsuspecting guests into saying vulgar words”. Classy stuff! (Or at least funny, usually.) Wayne’s favorite line was “Party on, excellent!”, and despite the fact that Mike Myers is a Canadian native, he pulled the suburban Chicago accent off well. (Note: “ax-cellent” or “excell-ennt” were alternative pronunciations of “excellent” common to early 1980’s Chicago, most often used to describe the latest REO Speedwagon or Journey album.)

The movie contains a night shot of The Spindle, with the Sears store in the background, as well as a brief shot of the neon-lit Cermak Plaza sign. This follows my favorite scene in the movie, the “Stan Mikita’s Donut Shop” sequence, probably a play on the Tim Horton’s coffee shop chain, which I believe hadn’t yet migrated from Canada to the states at the time of the film. Stan Mikita was a legendary player for the Chicago Blackhawks in the 60’s and 70’s. Bobby Hull may have been more famous, but Stan was the cult hero. A few years ago, a friend of mine from work told me of how he ran into the long-retired Mikita at a Florida resort while he was there for a trade show. “Dave, I can die now”, he said. I’m a fan as well, but I don’t think I’d take it that far. (When we lived in Nashville in the late 1990’s, we split season tickets for the first three seasons of the NHL expansion Predators, and I was struck by the politeness of the Nashville hockey fans. They obviously hadn’t learned “the art of expressive language” that we were so accustomed to in Chicago. Last I hear, though, they’re really starting to get the hang of it!)

Just as controversy surrounded the introduction of Cermak Plaza’s most notable art works, Big Bil-Bored and Spindle, it also surrounded their demise. Big Bil-Bored, having survived nearly two decades of public outrage and various attempts to force its removal, was becoming an appreciable safety hazard due to severe rusting of its embedded metal artifacts. In 1998 it was dismantled. Guess they just don’t make junk like they used to.

The destruction of Spindle, which through the years had become a true Berwyn trademark, caused more consternation. In 2007, Walgreens made known its desire to vacate its in-line location at Cermak Plaza in order to build a free-standing store with a drive-thru pharmacy at the edge of the shopping center’s parking lot. The spot they had in mind, as reported at the time, was exactly where Spindle stood. This time, there were allies in the battle – the Berwyn Arts Council and the Berwyn Mainstreet Committee headed up a valiant attempt to raise money to move the sculpture to another location within the parking lot in order to accommodate the new Walgreens store. On July 22, 2007, participants in Chicago Critical Mass, a monthly bike ride that attracts hundreds of cyclists, descended on Cermak Plaza to raise awareness of the need to “Save the Spindle”, citing anger about “corporate interests erasing (the) town’s identity”. It would be of no avail. The decision was made to sell the sculpture on Ebay, but the auction, with a $50,000 starting bid, found no takers. On May 2, 2008, it came down. Somewhere recently I read that the location of the new Walgreens, which is up and operating, is actually slightly east of the Spindle location. A painful thought, but oh, well.

Recent years haven’t been kind to the shopping center from an occupancy point of view, either. The Sears store closed in 1993, replaced by a Circuit City, which closed along with the rest of the chain last year and is now vacant. The Service Merchandise store has sat empty since that chain’s 2002 closing, with the signs amazingly still intact eight years later. The recently vacated Walgreens space also sits empty. Some Bermant-style imagination would certainly come in handy now.

About a year back, two new signs were erected at Cermak Plaza. While considerably shorter than the original signs, they represent an effort to emulate the original 1958 look, albeit with directory boards added. The new signs are internally lit plastic as opposed to the porcelain and neon of the originals. One wonders why they didn’t just restore the classic signs, the support posts of which could have easily accommodated the addition of the directory boards. The appearance of the new signs has caused concern among Cermak Plaza aficionados, fearful the classic neon tower signs aren’t long for this world, although it’s strictly a minor rebellion compared to the “Save the Spindle” outcry. In my opinion, they deserve points for even attempting to capture the look of the old signs, something rarely bothered with in these cases. And the color match is pure Pantone perfection.

I’m trying to think of ways to snag a V.I.P. invitation to the dedication of the new signs. To miss out on this event would be unthinkable, but I’m stumped. Wait a minute – I’m a blogger, right? And bloggers are sorta “members of the press”, aren’t we? Then I’ll just ask for a press pass! Yeah, that’s it! That’s the ticket!

Oops, sorry…wrong Saturday Night Live sketch.

Most of the photos above are the work of Jeanette Archie, taken circa 1991. My sincere thanks to Jeanette and her husband Joe for allowing me to use them here. While the Big Bil-Bored and Spindle sculptures are the main motifs of the photos, they afford a nice view of the surrounding stores, most of which have changed greatly through the intervening years. Many thanks also to James Quinn for the close-up of the classic 1958 sign, and to Noah Vaughn for the photo of the new sign, with the new Walgreens resplendent in the background.

And now, some artifacts:

First, a trade ad for National Plazas from Chain Store Age magazine, showing the company’s current and planned shopping centers, with Cermak Plaza topping the latter list. Next are two teaser ads (November 22 and 25, 1956) for Cermak Plaza, followed by the main Grand Opening ad on the 29th. The Jewel Food Store grand opening ad, from November 15, is next. Following that is a wonderful photo of the Cermak Plaza Sears as it originally appeared. My very special thanks go to the Sears Holdings Archives for allowing the use of this photo. After that, an opening day photo of the J.C. Penney store, which many of us remember in its later incarnation as a Service Merchandise. Last up is an artist’s rendering of the unique Cermak Plaza McDonald’s.

Murphy's Mart By The Numbers

At the end of 1973 there were 22 Murphy’s Marts in operation, most of which were in G.C. Murphy’s western Pennsylvania home territory. Even in this core market - the “Heart of Murphyland” as it were, the company’s late entry into discounting had put them at a major competitive disadvantage, especially in relation to Kmart, whose presence in all of Murphy’s key areas now well established. Added to that was the general economic situation of the day, with no foreseeable end to rampant inflation. The combination of the poor mid-70’s economy with an oversupply of loosely managed, poor performing discount chains would soon precipitate an industry shakeout, affecting names mentioned here many times before– Topps/White Front, Turn-Style, and closer to home, longtime variety store competitor W.T. Grant. All in all, Murphy’s found itself in a most challenging environment.

Nevertheless, the company now appeared ready to cast its lot with the Marts, and a major ramp-up of new store openings would soon be underway. Twenty-plus stores had taught the company a major lesson, however – that in many cases, the typical 80 to 100,000 square foot Murphy’s Marts were too large for their respective trade areas. To rectify this, the company came up with a scalable concept to be used for all Murphy’s Marts going forward. Four basic store footprints were developed and described by the company in 1973.

The “900” series signified the “heavyweights of (Murphy’s) store mix”, being the largest Marts at 98,000 square feet. These were free-standing units, paired with a 30,000 square foot top-name supermarket to create a “true one-stop shopping complex”, and were reserved for the company’s most densely populated markets. The larger floor space would “accommodate broader selections and trade-up priced merchandise at competitive discount prices”. Next were the “800” series stores, 88,000 square foot units that would either be either free-standing or would “anchor a mall-type shopping center”, the company’s preferred setting for the “800” stores, “where available”. Then came the “700” stores, similar in all respects to the “800” stores except for their smaller square footage of 66,000. Here again, mall locations were Murphy’s preference. The company was careful to point out that the “700” stores offered “substantially the same selection of merchandise as the larger ‘900’ and ‘800’ series”, only in smaller quantities. It’s clear that Murphy felt that the “700” stores hit the proverbial sweet spot, and would “play a significant role in (their) future expansion plans”, and that “Present experience, though limited, seems to indicate “700” series Marts are more economical than larger Marts yet are still capable of high volume retailing”. More problematic were the 45,000 square foot “600” series Marts, which “were initially conceived as ‘swing stores’, and could be operated as Murphy’s Marts in some locations and as conventional (G.C. Murphy-branded) stores in others”. (Hey, Pennsylvania’s a “swing state”, isn’t it?) The dual branding idea was scrapped and whatever “600” stores were opened did so as Murphy’s Marts, although their similarity in size to the company’s variety stores led in many cases to customer confusion.

With the new store formats set, the company turned its focus to making up for lost time, rolling out new Murphy's Marts at a much faster pace than before. In 1976-77 alone, 56 new Marts were opened, forty of which were former W.T. Grant locations, picked up in the wake of that company's tragic bankruptcy in 1975. Many of these Grants locations were located in the Southern states. The company was unable, however, to leverage the famous G.C. Murphy name - one of their key strategies in building up the Marts in the Eastern and Midwest states - in the new Southern market areas, due to the relative paucity of G.C. Murphy stores in the Southeast and the fact that their Southwestern stores still went under the Morgan & Lindsey name.

Even in their strongest markets, though, the "Murphy's" name recognition factor was a double-edged sword. The book "For the Love of Murphy's" by Jason Togyer mentions customer frustration with the G.C. Murphy variety stores' higher pricing level as compared to the Murphy's Marts, and the fact that they weren't allowed to return or exchange merchandise purchased from one chain at the other's stores. Several retired Murphy's executives are quoted on this issue, ruefully noting that S.S. Kresge did not experience the same problem. Kmart was different enough in name and meteoric enough (how's that for a measurement?) in its success that the Kresge/Kmart association was largely forgotten in the minds of most consumers by the mid-1970's. And it didn't help that Murphy's newspaper ads continued to routinely promote both chains' sales in the same space, a practice that was finally scuttled in 1979.

By the end of the 1970's, G.C. Murphy was losing money. A November 1979 Business Week article was painfully sharp in its analysis of the company's problems, placing a large chunk of the blame on the increased number of Murphy's Marts, which the company was "still trying to assimilate", due to the fact that it "expanded its Mart operations faster than it could control them". The basic contention of the article was that G.C. Murphy had never recognized "that it runs two distinctly different types of retail businesses". That year, major changes were made, including the forced retirement of Murphy's president, who was replaced by Chuck Lytle, a veteran Murphy executive, amiable and extremely well-liked by the troops. The Marts and variety store operations were finally separated into two groups, and advertising would no longer be shared. Interestingly, the Murphy's Mart store footprint would shrink even more, with "the greatest share of the new units (to) be 32,000 sq. ft to 38,000 sq. ft". Eight of the oldest Murphy's Marts, which at an average 90,000 square feet were gigantic by comparison, were shuttered.

Over the next few years there would be a few more closings, both of Murphy’s Marts (some of the weaker performing ex-Grants stores in the South) and of variety stores. The early 1980’s would also see a couple of major retoolings of the Marts, including an attempt to bolster the quality of the apparel offerings (a perennially weak area for the company) and to update the stores’ décor, the early 70’s green , gold and orange having grown stale by that time. In his book, Togyer likens the updated 1984 Murphy’s Mart look to that later adopted by Target, incorporating “expensive-looking displays lit with baby spotlights” as part of interiors “done over in sleek, corporate white with red and blue accents and simple, handsome signs”. These new signs featured a stylized “M” that looked like a neon tube. A November 1983 Chain Store Age article highlighted some new additions to the merchandise mix as well: “Gitano color-fit jeans, Gloria Vanderbilt black denims and Wrangler cords”, all part of an effort to make soft lines “the central focus of the Marts”. Also, it was mandated that the song “Maniac” from the Flashdance movie soundtrack be played on a continuous tape loop in all Murphy’s Mart adult apparel departments.

These efforts (All except for the “Maniac” song loop – I just made that up.) were paying off. According to the same article, G.C. Murphy sales, despite a store lineup of 19 fewer units, were $872 million for 1983, up six percent from the previous year. Profits, however, were up an astounding 56 percent, a feat the magazine credited to the “increased emphasis on the Murphy’s Mart stores”.

At any previous time in the 20th century, this upturn in fortunes might possibly have been seen as the beginning of an exciting new era – at the very least a “mini golden age” for the Murphy organization. But these were the 1980’s, an era in which the old rules of business were rapidly going by the wayside. Murphy was about to become a victim of its own success.

From a business standpoint, the 1980’s were a drama like none that had gone before. “Hostile takeovers” formed the plot, and “corporate raiders” were the villains. The helpless victims were staid, old-line companies with large reserves of cash and little debt, conservatively run and largely owned by “Gram-and-Gramp”-type investors, who faithfully acquired the stock in small amounts and held onto it forever. All too often, there were no heroes in these real-life tales. Under a hostile takeover typical of those that took place in the 80’s, the corporate raider, or “investor”, would target a company and seek to sow discord among its shareholders, charging inefficiency or malfeasance of some sort on the part of the company ‘s board and management. Well-heeled or well-backed, the investor would begin to acquire blocks of the company’s stock, eventually gaining a controlling interest. At that point, sensing the writing on the wall, the remaining shareholders were usually more than willing to sell their shares. All that was left then was for the raider (excuse me, I mean “investor”) to break up the company and sell it off in pieces, usually resulting in a huge profit. It was a scenario that played itself out time and time again through the 80’s. Eventually, government regulations, prosecutions and (just a theory here) a possible latent desire for respect on the part of the raiders caused the trend to wind down. To learn more, you can find any number of books on the subject, or you can just rent the 1987 movie “Wall Street”, which sums the whole sordid thing up remarkably well. (And the hairstyles are awesome.)

To be sure, The G.C. Murphy Company was an old-line, cash rich, low-debt, (very) conservative company, with investor rolls filled with Grandmas and Grandpas. And nowhere were the corporate raiders more brutal than in the retail world. The most (in)famous of these was Herbert Haft, who in the space of a few years went after Safeway, Federated, Stop & Shop, Eckerd, Kroger, Dayton-Hudson and others, leaving very little time for hobbies, I’m sure. None of these takeover attempts succeeded, but in most cases Haft walked away with a pile of cash and left a lot of damage in his wake. Haft’s basic tactic – he’d buy an interest in a company, threaten a hostile takeover, and refuse to back off unless the company bought back his shares at a huge premium, which they invariably did - came to be known as “greenmail”. He apparently considered G.C. Murphy too small to bother with, as there is no record of any advances made toward them.

Others were interested, however. New Jersey-based investor Arthur Goldberg, characterized as “one of Wall Street’s sharks” by Togyer, had acquired 7.5 percent of Murphy’s stock by early 1984. Just prior to that, Murphy proposed a new policy to its shareholders that would have mandated an 80 percent majority of shareholders to approve the dismissal of any member of the board of directors or a merger with another company. Goldberg sought to defeat the proposal, and when he lost, decided to dump his stock. After some hemming and hawing, Murphy management tried to corral a group of investors friendly to the company to buy Goldberg out, almost putting it together, but ultimately falling short. Goldberg sold out to an apparently bigger shark - Irwin Jacobs, a Minneapolis-based investor charmingly known, according to Togyer, as “Irv the Liquidator”. Eventually Jacobs would rack up an astounding 19 percent of Murphy’s common stock, and all of the power that went along with it.

Now having to deal with a new, even tougher adversary, Murphy brass tried to prevail upon Jacobs to sell his shares back to the company. Togyer’s book describes some fairly humorous scenes of facility tours the company hosted for Jacobs, instructing store and distribution center managers beforehand “not to clean up”, the intent being to leave a shoddy impression - convincing Jacobs he’d made a dubious investment and compelling him to sell his stake back to the company, cheap.

Once again, Murphy attempted to put together a coalition to sufficiently finance the repurchase of its stock, and once again, sadly, it failed. On April 13, 1985, the announcement was made that Irwin Jacobs had struck a deal to sell his G.C. Murphy holdings. The buyer? Rocky Hill, Connecticut-based Ames Department Stores. After an agonizing summer filled with offers and counteroffers, legal maneuverings, jockeying for position and considerable fear and loathing, the deal was finally done on August 6. The G.C. Murphy Company, a proud 90 year old organization, one of America’s retail pioneers, was gone.

Off the bat, plans were announced to close nearly one-fourth of the G.C. Murphy variety stores. Ames’ main interest in the transaction was to gain control of the Murphy’s Marts and convert them to Ames units, a process that ended up taking nearly two years. Immediately, however, management responsibility for the Marts was shifted to Rocky Hill, while the variety store division continued to report to McKeesport.

As expected in most any merger situation, considerable vitriol flowed from both sides of the Ames-Murphy’s merger, which the Togyer book and several press articles I’ve read expound in fascinating detail. Murphy partisans described the Ames operation as follows: “Honky-tonk operations…a mess…a terrible store with terrible merchandising…We should have been the one to take Ames over”. A Wall Street analyst “who asked not to be named” (gee, I wonder why…) took up the cause for Ames in a September 1987 New York Times article: “My assumption is that there’s something really rotten at the Murphy’s operation. Ames was beautifully managed all those years before it bought Murphy’s”. (While reading this stuff, the Ramones song “We’re a Happy Family” kept running through my head. Not at all fitting, I know, but it’s like trying to stop thinking about a hippopotamus when a friend dares you that you can’t!)

The variety store division, which in 1989 consisted of 131 G.C. Murphy stores and 25 “Bargain World” outlets was never a fit for Ames and in August 1989, Ames sold it to E-II Holdings, a company controlled by legendary financier Meshulam Riklis. E-II (later called McCrory Corp.) had pretty much become the repository for the five-and-ten biz by that time, with a stable that included McCrory (which had been a Riklis property for decades under his previous company, Rapid-American Corporation), J.J. Newberry, H.L. Green, S.H. Kress, T.G. & Y and Britts, among others. Despite this, Riklis was probably most famous for his marriage to Pia Zadora, an aspiring actress/singer. Riklis had famously invested several of his McCrory millions in an effort to make her a star. I met the diminutive Ms. Zadora in my youth at a record signing at Atlanta’s Lenox Square while visiting my cousins there in ’83 or so, and thought she was nice, and even better looking in person than in all of her ridiculously expensive publicity. At that point I deemed her new single, called “The Clapping Song” if I remember right, to be a non-deleterious issue.

The G.C. Murphy story’s ending coincides with that of the 20th century, upon the folding of its two successor companies. In 2002, McCrory Corporation, last of the variety store operators with a paltry 200 stores left of its “empire” (a handful of which operated under the G.C. Murphy banner to the bitter end), closed its doors for good.

Ames, a fascinating story in and of itself, closed down in August of that same year. Having acquired several large retailers in the 1980’s and 1990’s, including several chains outright – King’s, Murphy’s, Zayre, Hills – and prime locations from a slew of other defunct chains, Ames struggled for years prior to its demise. The prevailing opinion is that Ames finally collapsed under the weight of the Zayre acquisition, finding the assimilation of the stores far more costly and difficult than anticipated.

A few of the former Ames units are first-generation Murphy’s Marts, sitting vacant to this day, just waiting for an enterprising soul to show up and open “Big Murph’s Flea Market”. You never know.

Shown above are Murphy publicity photos from 1973-4. Ok, by the numbers: First, a great-looking “900” series Murphy’s Mart/Acme combination, this one being the first Mart to open in Baltimore. Next up are an exterior view and the inside mall entrance of the Butler, Pennsylvania, location, an “800” store. Note the fine examples of 70’s art to the left of the inside entrance (the paintings, not the cornstalk man). Following are similar views of the DuBois, Pennsylvania location (right, a “700” store – you’re getting this!), with the young lady in the foreground in the de rigueur plaid flares. Last is a “600” store, from Westernport, Maryland, which leaves me at a loss for words. (If I think of any, I’ll edit the post. Don’t wait up.) Below is kind of a strange one, from 1975. A photo of a similar looking facade (sans the happy-looking store crew in the foreground) is featured in the Togyer book and is captioned in a way that leads me to believe it’s one of the former W.T. Grant stores, fitted with a Murphy’s Mart logo that’s an odd throwback to an earlier version.

****A special note to everyone – thanks for bearing with me through the longer stretches between posts lately. I’m working towards resuming my former blistering, frenetic posting pace (haha) that you’ve all grown accustomed to, and to responding to your comments on a much more timely basis. They are wonderful, informative and greatly appreciated as always. One thing I’ve learned, to my horror, is that a number of responses I’ve written to emails I’ve received over the last month or so (which I definitely have attempted to respond to promptly) have apparently not gone through. I’ve had this problem with Hotmail before. I will try to look them up and resend them on another email account. If you have written me recently or were expecting communication from me on something or another, and are sitting there thinking “Wow, Dave’s been one poor correspondent. He’s been too, too hard to find. I guess that means we ain’t been on his mind!”, nothing could be further from the truth. Please drop me another quick line and I’ll resend my original response. (Or I’ll at least apologize like heck!) Thanks again.****

From Mayfair to Murphy's Mart

Seven long years after their largest variety store competitors had launched discount store formats, S.S. Kresge’s Kmart and F.W. Woolworth’s Woolco, the G.C. Murphy Company was now in the thick of planning for a discount store venture of its own. The following year, 1970, the first two “Murphy’s Marts” would open.

One of the most interesting aspects of Murphy’s planning, as detailed in the book “For the Love of Murphy’s” by Jason Togyer, was the process of selecting a name for the new line of stores. A number of different possibilities were considered along the way, including “M-mart”, which was rejected quickly, presumably due to its obvious similarity to Kmart. Then there was “Murphy’s Merchandise Mart” which could be nicknamed “M-M-M” or “Three-M’s”, but that one would have risked infringing 3M Company’s trademark, which itself was shorthand for Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company. (I’m thinking four M’s would have been the charm – just toss “marvelous” or “magnificent” in there!) A mascot was even considered, in this case a “big lumberjack guy holding a sign that said ‘Big Murph’”, which would have been the new chain’s name. Murphy officials “didn’t go for it”, according to the book. Ultimately, the “mart” idea prevailed, and since “Murphy’s” was common parlance for the company’s stores as it was, the path of least resistance was to combine the two. “Murphy’s Mart” it would be.

Murphy’s corporate architect, Ralph Barlow, developed a very nice design for the new Murphy’s Mart’s, making excellent use of color and texture within the fairly restrictive parameters of discount store design. “Inside, he painted the marts in deep, rich shades of green, gold and orange; outside, the facades received deeply sculptured metal panels in the same bold colors” went the description in the Togyer book, which contrasted them with the “plain white Kmarts”.

The stage was set for a mid-1970 opening of the first store in Harmar Township, Pennsylvania, a “semi-rural” area north of Pittsburgh, near the Allegheny Interchange of the Pennsylvania Turnpike that was evolving into a suburb. The store was even named “Store #801”, signifying its status as the first Murphy’s Mart. As fate would have it, however, the Harmar Twp. location ended up being the chain’s second unit to open due to a unique opportunity that presented itself.

Three years earlier, in 1967, a giant (for the time) department store complex called Mayfair South Shoppers’ Forum had opened in Bethel Park, a south suburb of Pittsburgh. (There was also a “North” version of it in north suburban McCandless Township.) Within a couple of years, the Mayfair business failed and the large, attractive, one-story department store building (160,000 square feet) sat empty. Despite some reservations, Murphy management saw the opportunity not only to launch “the Marts” several months ahead of the original plan, but also the benefit of having coverage in two key suburban areas from the near get-go. A deal was struck to acquire the Mayfair property, the necessary renovations were carried out, and Barlow’s interior decor package was implemented. The first Murphy’s Mart, Store #802, opened in Bethel Park, Pennsylvania on May 27, 1970. Togyer’s book cites the designated grand opening giveaway for the early Marts – a plastic laundry basket (good to fill up with other stuff, no doubt!).

The Bethel Park store was unique in that it was an entire shopping complex, which according to an article in the Uniontown Morning Herald-Evening Standard article featured a greenhouse/garden center called “Arcadian Gardens”, a Firestone Tire Center and a Winky’s Drive In, the latter two of which are visible at the front edge of the parking lot. Inside the store were departments that would be common to all Murphy’s Marts, as listed in the same article – “Fashion Accessories; Fashion Apparel; Men’s and Boys’ Furnishings; Sweets n’ Eats; Music – TV’s – Photo; Writings and Wrappings; Knit n’ Stitch – Home Furnishings – Domestics; Housewares and Home Improvements; Toys and Hobbies; Tobacco Shop; Sporting Goods and Accessories. (I think I’ve used up this site’s entire allotment of semicolons in that last quote – great, I’ll probably have to pay for some “premium” version of Blogger now!) Oh, and “a full-line major appliance department (was) planned”.

Just under two months later, on July 22, the Harmar Twp. Store opened. This was the first “true” Murphy’s Mart prototype, and over the first couple of years of the banner’s existence, most of the Marts were cast in its mold. Typically, the “Murphy’s Mart” portion ranged from 80,000 to 100,000 square feet, but the buildings also contained another 30,000 square feet or so to be leased out to a “national or strong regional food chain for supermarket operations”, as the company put it in their 1973 annual report. In the Pittsburgh area, Giant Eagle was the preferred partner, and later on when the Marts entered Baltimore, an Acme Market usually rode shotgun. Other areas featured other chains – the Defiance, Ohio Murphy’s Mart, for example, was paired with an A&P.

Two and a half years after the first Murphy’s Mart opened, there were ten stores in total – eight in the greater Pittsburgh area and two in the Youngstown, Ohio area. In next few years, the pace of new openings would increase and the geographic footprint of the Murphy’s Marts would be significantly expanded. Along with that, however, would come major changes in the Murphy’s Mart format to address the tough mid-70’s American economy and to rectify some faulty assumptions the company made that only became apparent after time. They had finally made their start, though.

In a way, I think it’s a shame they didn’t go with “Big Murph”- that would have been memorable. I can envision a costumed Big Murph standing there, Disney World style, handing out laundry baskets to customers on opening day. Scary, no doubt, but memorable.

The photos above are from 1970. First is an aerial view of the first Murphy’s Mart in Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, followed by one of the second location in Harmar Township. The third and fourth photos, showing excited (and a few dazed) shoppers with death grips on their free laundry baskets and a view of the checkouts are from the Bethel Park location. I believe the rest of the photos, showing various departments (note the targets in the sporting goods section, something that’s in evidence in several similar photos from other chains on this site – was archery that big back then?) are from the Harmar Township store.

G.C. Murphy - Dime Store Pioneer

From the moment of its founding in 1899 until the curtain came down nearly 90 years later, the G.C Murphy Company was first and foremost one thing – an operator of variety stores. Known colloquially as “five-and-tens” or “dime stores”, variety stores were giant forces in American retailing throughout most of the 20th century. Virtually every retail chain that sells general merchandise at “less than full price”, from one end of the spectrum (Walmart) to the other (any chain with the word “dollar” in its name) can trace part of its heritage, either directly or by influence, to the variety stores.

George Clinton Murphy was a native of Indiana County, Pennsylvania, an area located about 60 miles west of Pittsburgh, known best today as the boyhood home of actor James Stewart. Born there in 1868, Murphy would leave the area as a young man to go to work for J.G. McCrorey (the “e” was soon discarded) in McCrory’s Jamestown, New York variety store, some 150 miles north of Murphy’s hometown. Not long after Murphy joined the firm, McCrory sold Sebastian Spering Kresge, a salesman who had called on his store, an interest in the firm. Murphy was put in charge of mentoring Kresge in the business, traveling with him to Memphis to help Kresge open a new McCrory-Kresge store. Obviously, Murphy did a good job of showing him the ropes, as Kresge would later go on to become one the all-time retailing legends. In early 1899, Murphy left the McCrory-Kresge firm to start up his own store in McKeesport, Pennsylvania, a town much closer in to Pittsburgh. (A few short years later, Kresge and McCrory would part ways, running their own namesake firms afterward.)

Within five years, the G.C Murphy Company would have 14 stores in the greater Pittsburgh area, all reporting to the McKeesport home base. Before long, Murphy’s ascendancy came to the attention of the then 76-store strong F.W. Woolworth organization, a company that was expanding rapidly into several major American cities (at that point mostly in the Northeast) through acquisition. In 1911, Woolworth would consolidate those many acquisitions into what would become the modern F.W. Woolworth Company, which, like S.S. Kresge Co. would become a 20th century American retailing titan. In mid-1904, Murphy sold his young chain to Woolworth, who insisted on the proviso that Murphy would not operate a five and ten cents store in their territories.

Note that the agreement said “five and ten cents store.” It did not say “five through twenty-five cents store”, which is exactly what Murphy proceeded to open, just down the block from one of his old stores that was now a Woolworth’s. Soon, Murphy’s new company had ten stores, one in downtown Pittsburgh and the rest in surrounding towns.

Tragically, Murphy would not live to see his company’s greatest successes. In 1909, he passed away suddenly at the age of 41. With no succession plan in place and a failed public offering of the stock, the company floundered for the next couple of years.

At this point, J.G. McCrory reentered the picture, at least briefly. Considering a possible buyout of the Murphy company, McCrory sent his deputy (and cousin) John Sephus “Seph” Mack to look into the possibility. Mack returned with a most enthusiastic recommendation in favor of a buyout. When McCrory balked for no apparent good reason, Mack began to formulate plans to acquire Murphy himself, enlisting the help of friend and fellow McCrory manager Walter Shaw. Of course, this would entail their resignations from McCrory, which took place in short order. In February 1911, the two men closed the deal to acquire the G.C. Murphy Company, and for the next nearly 60 years, either a Mack or a Shaw would be running the show.

Mack and Shaw had "complementary" personalities, with Mack called “the architect” and Shaw “the engineer”, according to the book “For the Love of Murphy’s”, a wonderful history of G. C. Murphy written by Jason Togyer, that serves as the source of most of the information in these Murphy posts. Mack’s hard driving personality and Shaw’s people skills made for a powerful combination that would help facilitate dramatic growth for Murphy in the ensuing years.

Murphy pursued some interesting policies that set them apart from their dime store compañeros, including the implementation of a much higher “price ceiling” in many of its stores, both literally and figuratively. As far back as the early twenties, many Murphy stores had a second floor which featured all manner of goods priced from 25 cents to a dollar, while down below the normal 5-to-10 cent price point was the rule. After some years of back-and-forth on this policy, the company was finally convinced it was a winner with customers and made it permanent, going so far as to move everything down to the main floor. By contrast, Woolworth’s price cap remained at twenty cents until 1935.

Another point that found Murphy at odds with the competition was the company’s store location strategy. Whereas Woolworth sought to establish coverage in such major markets as New York, Philadelphia and Boston, Murphy expanded their geographic base far more slowly, avoiding the “jump and backfill” approach, preferring instead to shore up their base in the industrial towns of Ohio, West Virginia and Pennsylvania, long before the “rust belt” was rusty. Despite the intervention of a major depression and then a world war, these towns came through for Murphy year after year. By the mid-30’s, with nearly 200 stores in the chain, Murphy’s average per store sales and profits were far higher than Woolworth’s.

The 1940’s saw several leadership transitions within the company. Seph Mack passed away in 1940, and the chairmanship passed to his cousin Edgar Mack. Upon his death six years later, the top job went to Walter Shaw, Seph Mack’s original partner in the business. Despite these transitions, Murphy’s continued to grow, with the average store size increasing significantly through the 40’s.

In 1951, G.C. Murphy acquired the Morris 5 & 10 Cent Stores, a Bluffton, Indiana-based chain of 71 variety stores. This proved to be an excellent move for Murphy, giving them a leadership position right out of the box in Indiana, a state that adjoined their existing market area. It was timely as well, as it provided a hedge against some major labor strikes that occurred around this time near their highly manufacturing and mining-based home turf. If there was a downside to Murphy’s store location strategy, it was a particular vulnerability to strikes, which of course affected the purchasing power of their loyal, largely working-class customer base.

Another leadership change took place in 1953, when the second generation took over. Jim Mack, son of Seph Mack, had his father’s hard driving style combined with a Harvard education, but according to the Togyer book had a presence that a number of Murphy employees found intimidating. Also Mack’s philosophy was very conservative in respects that would take their toll on Murphy over time. For example, Murphy was exceedingly slow to convert to self-service. Many of their fellow variety chains (along with most major supermarkets) had already done this, and the practice was met with overwhelming acceptance from consumers. Secondly, Mack was utterly disdainful of discounting, even banning the use of the word in Murphy’s stores. In the early 50’s this wasn’t a big problem. Ten years later, with Mack still in place, resolute and attitude unchanged, it certainly became one, given the 1960’s startlingly different retail climate.

In contrast, Mack spearheaded an interesting development for Murphy – the acquisition of several chains in the Southwest, far outside of the company’s traditional operating areas. The largest was the 1959 buyout of Morgan & Lindsey, a Monroe, Louisiana based chain of 92 variety stores in Louisiana, Texas and Arkansas. Then there were a slew of “junior department store” (along the lines of a medium-sized Penney’s, for lack of a better description) acquisitions in Texas over the next several years - Cobb’s - four stores in west Texas, Bruner’s - 28 stores in San Antonio, Morris Dept. Stores – 13 stores in Dallas, and Terry Farris, with 17 stores in McAllen, Texas, just above the Mexican border.

The latter acquisitions proved to be disastrous, due to Murphy’s lack of understanding of the nuances of the shopping culture in Texas cities, and the very different requirements of operating junior department stores as opposed to variety stores. (Wait, did I just say “nuances” and “Texas” in the same sentence? Ok, we’ll call this one a “draft”. No offense, fellow Texans!) Worse yet, many name brands that had been longtime suppliers of these chains, including such mainstays as Levi Strauss, bailed when they learned of the new ownership by Murphy. They feared that their products would somehow end up in the Murphy dime stores, as Togyer mentions in his book. Murphy elected to supply its own house brands to the stores as a replacement, including their “Big Murph” jeans (I’m really hoping there wasn’t a “Lady Murph” brand, but it takes a lot to surprise me these days!). This practice “more or less ruined (the stores)”, a former executive told Togyer.

The Morgan & Lindsey stores, being true 5-and-10’s, fared better, but there was a fair amount of animosity between longtime M & L local store operators and the McKeesport-based Murphy brass that took some years to quell. Wisely, Murphy opted to keep the Morgan & Lindsey name, probably based on their experience with the smattering of G.C. Murphy stores opened in the Southeastern states, where the company’s poor name recognition put a damper on sales.

By the late 50’s, the standard G.C. Murphy stores were well-oiled machines. Downtown stores in their core Ohio Valley and Mid-Atlantic markets continued to sustain the company. As with other “five and ten” chains, the store cafeterias, without a doubt among the most beloved aspects of the Murphy stores and the subject of some of the fondest anecdotes in the Togyer book, were a major source of profits and an all-important traffic driver for the stores.

This was especially true in the company’s “flagship” stores, a class that included gigantic G.C. Murphy stores on Fifth Avenue in downtown Pittsburgh (“Store #12”, pictured first above) and Washington, D.C. (“Store #166", located at between Twelfth and Thirteenth Streets). The Pittsburgh store, for example, took up an entire block, and was remodeled at least ten times between 1931 and 1950 according to the Togyer book. In the 1960’s, this store was the site of a number of exciting promotions, including live in-store broadcasts by local DJ’s. Also, they leased space to a “full-time” fortune teller and all manner of other sideshows. Murphy even leased out one corner of the store a meat market. By virtue of their great locations in bustling sections of town and their well-earned “ local landmark” status, these stores were excellent performers for the chain well into the 1980’s, years after the company’s other stores began to struggle.

By the early 1960’s, however, it was another story for the rank-and-file small town and suburban G.C. Murphy stores. The discounting trend was in full swing, and the greatest pinch was being felt from their direct competitors – F.W. Woolworth’s Woolco stores, and to a much greater extent, S.S. Kresge’s Kmarts. Sensing an opening wide enough to drive a (hundred-thousand square foot discount store) through, Kresge invaded Murphy’s backyard and “erected Kmarts at all four compass points around Pittsburgh”, as Togyer puts it. Did Murphy defend their turf by opening large discount stores of its own? No. Not yet, at least.

Instead, Murphy sought to redefine the variety store concept, modernizing it to fit the changing lifestyle of the 1960’s consumer. The new stores would be called “A-A” (double-a) stores, featuring upgraded lighting and signage and bolder color schemes, but most importantly would employ a radically different approach to merchandising. Departments would be reorganized into “themed groups” to create a “boutique store” feeling, as described in the Togyer book, which describes a typical department – the “Entertainment Center”, as including “not just records, radios and television sets, but books, magazines craft supplies, musical instruments, and cameras”. The A-A stores would be larger but would actually carry fewer items than the typical Murphy store, and managers were required to ax items that fell below a certain sales threshold. Also, the A-A stores would be allowed to sell at deeper discounts than the standard Murphy stores. The bold new plan caught the attention of Chain Store Age, whose December 1967 issue consisted almost entirely of Murphy coverage. The magazine’s cover photo featured Murphy’s top executives huddled around a set of A-A store concept drawings, a banner headline excitedly proclaiming “G.C. Murphy’s On the Move Again!”

By the time Murphy had converted 10 percent of its 500-plus stores to the A-A format, they realized they had a bomb on their hands. Customers resented the fact that prices were higher at regular Murphy units than at the A-A stores, causing a public relations headache. More than that, they resented the fact that their beloved Murphy store carried far “less variety” than before. Even though the A-A stores carried more stock, they had fewer individual items (in today’s retail terminology, fewer stock keeping units or “SKU’s”). Beyond this, the A-A program offered little in the way of a panacea for the hammering the company was taking at the hands of the discounters.

Sadly, it took the 1968 death of Jim Mack, Murphy’s chairman, before the company embarked on a real solution to that problem. Unbeknownst to Mack or almost anyone else in the company, plans were surreptitiously being drawn up for a Murphy-owned discount concept. The very day after Mack’s passing, according to the Togyer book, the discount store plans came out of the drawer. The battle was about to be joined.

These are vintage G.C. Murphy publicity shots. First up is Store #12, the downtown Pittsburgh flagship, circa Christmastime 1973. Originally opened in 1930, the store was wrapped in the pictured “handsome streamlined façade” sometime in the late 40’s/early 50’s. The second photo, from 1968, shows the Annandale, Virginia store with an arcade-style facade that brings to mind some of the Memco stores that would open not far from there a few years later. Third, also from 1968, is a more conventional store from Beckley, West Virginia. Fourth, from 1973, a beautiful store with a fine colonial look from the quaint western Pennsylvania borough of Ligonier. Fifth, 1973 as well, is the interior entrance of the Monroeville, Pennsylvania store, a very inviting sight indeed. With fresh popcorn and pretzels beckoning, this one would have been hard to pass by. For sure, they knew what they were doing!

Pictured below, in 1968-dated photos, are two interior scenes from Murphy’s new “A-A” stores. The A-A concept may not have flown, but in my opinion, the designs represent a very nice updating of the variety store idea, and I particularly like the abovementioned lighting, bolder colors and modern (for the time) signage font. Immediately below is the wonderful candy department, scales at the ready.

Last is the “Entertainment Center” section, where I would have been guaranteed to waste a great deal of time. Portable record players were obviously a hot item (Sure hope the 45 adapters were built in!), and the white-framed portable television sets bring back memories. These rarely had remote control units, and I don’t believe that my family owned a TV with remote control until I was at least in high school. The silver lining to this was it gave people like me a great “hardship story” to use in the future – the modern-day version of Grandma and Grandpa’s “trudging through the snow for five miles to school every day, in worn-out shoes, uphill both ways” kind of thing. For me, it’s “Whenever we wanted to change the channel, we had to actually get up and go do it! It was horrible! You guys don’t know how lucky you are!” My kids shudder.

Then of course there was the records section, the main attraction for me from about age seven on. I’ve spent a good bit of time squinting at this photo trying to identify the album covers. (My personal area of expertise is covers of the 1970’s and 80’s, but I’m reasonably competent with the few years before and after that range. It’s too bad I couldn’t have minored in this in college – my GPA would have been greatly enhanced!) I’m embarrassed to say I’ve only been to call one so far, but it’s a great one – the 1968 blockbuster “Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison”, fourth album from the far left on the top row. I’ve been a Cash fan for years - he was an artist who refused to ever let himself be bracketed. And much of his best work was done in the last ten years of his career, an enviable feat. If anyone can squint harder than me, let me know if you figure any of the other covers out!