Department Stores

Let's go shopping! Michael J. Lisicky, a Baltimore Symphony Orchestra oboist and noted chronicler of departed East Coast department stores, had a local hit three years ago with his book, "Hutzler's: Where Baltimore Shops. " Now he is taking us on another nostalgic shopping tour to several of the city's sorely missed stores with the recent publication of his "Baltimore's Bygone Department Stores: Many Happy Returns. " He takes us back to that now-vanished and magical world of perfumed department stores with their tinkling, chiming, paging bells, and elegantly dressed and convivial floorwalkers and sales associates who were willing to help customers find what they were looking for. Lisicky generates memories here of goods beautifully displayed, the slight whooshing sound that the pneumatic tube made as it whisked a charge to the business office for approval and of stores gaily decorated not only for holidays but for various seasons.

  Shoe and apparel retailer Johnston & Murphy has opened in Towson Town Center in Towson. The new 1,842-square-foot store, which opened Friday, is located on the mall's second level in the Crate & Barrel wing, mall officials said. The Towson store, the sixth in Maryland, sells business, leisure and loungewear apparel for men and women. Johnston & Murphy started in 1850 as a men's retailer but introduced a line of women's shoes, clothing and accessories five years ago. UPDATE: Another new location for Johnston & Murphy is a kiosk on concourse A/B at Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport, where the retailer also has a full-sized store on concourse D. The 165-square-foot kiosk opened about a week ago, said a spokeswoman for Airmall USA, the airport's retail manager.

NEW YORK -- May Department Stores is likely to make a major acquisition in the next several months, analysts say."May wants to buy something, and they've probably been looking around the country for the best possible department store chain," said Peter Siris, an analyst at UBS Securities."

H&S Properties Development Corp. plans to push its Harbor East development east across Central Avenue with an expanded Whole Foods Market, a possible department store and apartments on two sites, baker-turned-developer John Paterakis Sr. said Friday. The developer will convert the one-story, brown-painted H&S Bakery distribution center into one or two floors of retail space, with apartments above, Paterakis said. H&S Bakery revealed intentions last month to move the center to an East Baltimore office park, freeing up the real estate by the end of 2014, he said.

John Francis Baker, former president of the Hecht Co. department stores, died Wednesday of pneumonia and complications from Parkinson's disease at the Genesis Eldercare Network at Spa Creek in Annapolis. He was 83 and had lived in Roland Park before retiring to Annapolis seven years ago. Mr. Baker was named general manager and vice president of what was then called the Hecht-May department stores in Baltimore in 1962. He was subsequently promoted to the chain's presidency and board chairmanship of what is now the Hecht's stores in Baltimore and Washington.

Tokyo -- Remember the $65 cantaloupes in those late-1980s stories about lavish Japanese department stores? The $750 neckties? The $4,300 designer suits?Well, they're still there, and that's a big problem -- nobody's buying them these days.For four decades, legendary names such as Takashimaya, Isetan and Matsuya presided regally over the retail segment of Japan's postwar "economic miracle." These symbols of extravagance became a "must see" for millions of tourists from the United States and other countries.

Consumers hunted bargains in the nation's stores in November, favoring discounters and specialty chains over department stores, and leaving winter apparel untouched on the racks amid spring-like weather throughout much of the nation.The nation's biggest retailers, which reported November sales yesterday, just barely met expectations, as gains at Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Gap Inc. helped offset sharp declines at department store chains such as Sears, Roebuck and Co."The department stores have taken a bloodbath," said Kurt Barnard, president of Barnard's Retail Trend Report in Upper Montclair, N.J. "The discount stores are doing quite well and thriving at the expense of the department stores."

READING, Pa. -- Down the steps of the Boscov's Department Store here, past the display of patio furniture, near the ladies in gift-wrap and squeezed into the basement, you'll find the chain's corporate headquarters. The modest, quaint central suite seems to befit the 40-store company begun 85 years ago by a Russian immigrant in this blue-collar city folded in the Lebanon Valley of eastern Pennsylvania. The halls are a little dark, a little dank. The furniture's a bit dated. The buyers who choose the merchandise to be sold in stores sit crammed behind tall cubicles plastered with family photos and photocopied cartoons.

Get out those credit cards, shoppers -- two new department stores opened in the county this week.Montgomery Ward & Co. in Cranberry Mall in Westminster and Peebles Department Store in Carrolltowne Mall in Eldersburg opened Monday, with grand opening ceremonies planned later this week.Montgomery Ward, Cranberry Mall's largest anchor, also is opening an Auto Express center.A grand opening ceremony for Peebles, which replaced the Jamesway store that closed in July, will be at 1 p.m. Saturday.

The day after Thanksgiving is a special time for Michelle Robinson. Growing up in Atlanta, she and her mother would head to Macy's downtown to browse, shop and eat at the department store's cellar-level market. So, she and her sister-in-law, Jessica Robinson, arrived early yesterday at the Macy's in Towson Town Center expecting to snag some great deals. Though fans of department stores, the women left disappointed. "Macy's is known for great sales," said Michelle Robinson, 36, of Westminster, who managed to pick up a jacket for her husband but nothing else.

Gertrude Brownstein, who worked for eight decades in grocery and department stores and later in a family-owned auction business, died of cancer Dec. 18 at Gilchrist Hospice Care in Towson. She was 100 and lived in Owings Mills. Gertrude Fishbone was born on Jan. 1, 1912, in Baltimore. She was the daughter of Hyman and Ida Fishbone, immigrants from the Ukraine. Family members said they came to this country speaking only Russian and Yiddish. They opened a corner grocery store in 1920 at 3600 Keswick Road in Hampden.

Let's go shopping! Michael J. Lisicky, a Baltimore Symphony Orchestra oboist and noted chronicler of departed East Coast department stores, had a local hit three years ago with his book, "Hutzler's: Where Baltimore Shops. " Now he is taking us on another nostalgic shopping tour to several of the city's sorely missed stores with the recent publication of his "Baltimore's Bygone Department Stores: Many Happy Returns. " He takes us back to that now-vanished and magical world of perfumed department stores with their tinkling, chiming, paging bells, and elegantly dressed and convivial floorwalkers and sales associates who were willing to help customers find what they were looking for. Lisicky generates memories here of goods beautifully displayed, the slight whooshing sound that the pneumatic tube made as it whisked a charge to the business office for approval and of stores gaily decorated not only for holidays but for various seasons.

Booming Under Armour Inc. announced Thursday that it earned $57 million in the third quarter, a 25 percent jump over the year-earlier period that was driven by strong demand for men's, women's and youth apparel and growing acceptance of the brand's footwear. Revenue surged nearly as much — 24 percent — at the Baltimore-based sports apparel maker, to $575 million in the three months ended Sept. 30. In last year's third quarter, Under Armour made $46 million on revenue of $466 million.

Rosella M. Beeler, a retired department store worker and homemaker, died of pneumonia Oct. 4 at Manor Care Health Services in Ruxton. The Campus Hills resident was 91. Born Rosella Mary Fischer in Baltimore and raised on Kenwood Avenue in East Baltimore, she attended Archdiocese of Baltimore parochial schools. As a young woman she began ice skating at the old Sports Centre on North Avenue. She appeared in Mike Martin's Ice Carnival and in a Baltimore Gas and Electric ice show. During World War II, she worked in the accounting department of the old Glenn L. Martin Co. in Middle River.

Boscov's department store returned to its former spot in Baltimore on Friday as an anchor of White Marsh Mall. A newly remodeled store opened at 10 a.m. in the 200,000-square-foot space that Boscov's left nearly four years ago. The regional chain is kicking off its return with a special, ticket-only preview day to benefit local nonprofit groups. The opening also will feature performances by the Academy Award-winning singer and actress Shirley Jones. The family-owned retailer has distributed about 25,000 preview day tickets to local nonprofits, which are selling the $5 stubs and keeping the proceeds, a Boscov's spokeswoman said Thursday.

Hundreds of Baltimore-area shoppers packed into the newly reopened Boscov's on Friday morning, welcoming back the department store as if they were greeting an old friend. "We're so glad you're back," customer after customer told store employees and Boscov family members on hand for the retailer's reopening at White Marsh Mall. The nearly 200,000-square-foot store opened in the same anchor spot the chain vacated four years ago amid the recession. The newly remodeled and restocked Boscov's drew hordes of shoppers Friday, all of whom had bought $5 tickets for the preview day. Proceeds went to local causes.

From scenes of Macy's in the Christmas movie Miracle on 34th Street to baby boomer recollections of the retail palaces with elevator operators and tearooms that once anchored Main Street, department stores tap a vein of nostalgia among shoppers. But yesterday's announcement that Federated Department Stores, which owns Macy's and Bloomingdale's, is buying May Department Stores, which owns Hecht's and Lord & Taylor, signals a turning point for the department store trade and the era of mall shopping it helped shape.

ATLANTA -- It wasn't Thanksgiving in March, but Macy's department stores heralded their more-dominant presence in Atlanta this weekend with a late-winter version of Macy's iconic autumn parade, complete with a huge, bobbing Garfield balloon, a children's dance troupe and falling confetti. But the event also retired a piece of shopping history. Rich's, a retail institution in Atlanta since Morris Rich opened a dry-goods store downtown in 1867, has been reflagged as Macy's by Federated Department Stores Inc. Federated is also changing the names of other regional chains across the country it has bought in recent years.

Louise V. Muhlbauer, a retired Hutzler's department store sales associate who enjoyed cooking and entertaining, died Wednesday of a stroke at Augsburg Lutheran Home and Village in Lochearn. The former longtime Parkville resident was 90. The daughter of German-Hungarian immigrant parents, the former Louise Victoria Weibe was born and raised in Lansdowne. During World War II, Mrs. Muhlbauer held a variety of secretarial jobs at Baltimore Gas and Electric Co., the Seaman's Branch of the YMCA, and Telephone Answering Service, where she coordinated a city-wide scrap drive for the war effort.