©2006 The Chestnut Hill Local

Strawbridge’s the latest victim of corporate vulture
by JIMMY J. PACK JR.

The elevator area of Strawbridger and Clothier is decorated with a bronze statue that is supposed to bring good luck. Not to this store. With one selling floor strewn with liquidated merchandise, the building had the feel of a post-doomsday movie set. (Photos by Jimmy J. Pack Jr. additional photos are available at www.shutterfly.com/pro/Jimmyj/ChestnutHillLocalWork.)

As of June 1, the Strawbridge’s department store will no longer exist. Less than a year ago the parent company of Strawbridge’s, the May Company (which has devoured many major department stores that gave some major American cities the heart of their retail culture, such as Filene’s of Boston, Marshall Field’s of Chicago and Hecht’s of Balitmore), announced that every store it owns will become either a Macy’s or a Bloomingdales. That’s it.

Another May-owned company, New York’s Lord & Taylor, will be sold off, but only after May takes what it needs from them. In Philadelphia that means the Lord & Taylor, nee Wannamaker’s at 13th and Market, will become a Macy’s.

And what is to become of the old Strawbridge’s building in center city? Rumors are circulating that it may become a Boscov’s or a Target, but regardless of what happens the loss of Strawbridge’s says a lot about what is happening to our culture.

After a recent walk down Market Street, I passed by Wannamaker’s. The doors are locked, the lights inside dim and the interior empty save for the debris of empty fixtures and ratty carpeting strewn with the stray threads of vanished clothing. It’s almost as if a fleet of tractor-trailers came in overnight and emptied the entire building in some sort of fly-by-night scam.

Empty jewelry and cologne cases trace the path towards the remnant of clothing on the first floor of Strawbridge and Clothier.

And further down the street lay the bleeding body of Wannamaker’s brother, Strawbridge’s, formerly known as Strawbridge and Clothier.

In 1862 two Quaker merchants, Justus Clayton Strawbridge and Isaac Hallowell Clothier, opened a dry goods store, which moved in 1868 to a three-story building on the corner of 8th and Market. The building they purchased was occupied by the Thomas Jefferson in 1790 when he served as Secretary of State. That building was replaced twice, and in 1928 the current building was constructed. But to look at Strawbridge’s now is to look at a set of ruins. The nameplates on the outside are like the markings on Ozymandius’ grave, the store’s logo, the seal of confidence, the equivalent of the weathered trunks of two stone legs.

As you pass the main doors to the store, a tablet marks the 125th anniversary of the store: “125 years of uninterrupted business on this site where Justus C. Strawbridge and Isaac H. Clothier established their partnership. This tablet commemorates the pioneer spirit of enterprise and the high principles of integrity on which this business was founded and is still conducted today by their family descendants who in each succeeding generation have pledged and will continue to be worthy of their heritage, so famously symbolized by our seal of confidence and so rightfully known as Philadelphia’s family business.”

To leave this tablet in front of the building would be to leave a lie carved in stone to embarrass both family names. The liquidation of the store is an obvious sign of the lack of principles of integrity big business owners claim to live by; it’s the glorious green dollar that pioneers the current spirit of enterprise.

As I went into the store, there was only one floor left open to the public. The merchandise was a mish-mash of leftover junk — baby blue fur coats, puce-colored fitted sheets, XXL Hawaiian shirts and the requisite number of store fixtures and accessories like old leather suitcases, Godiva chocolates shelving, silver spoons with the S & C logo and faded nylon butterflies.

The store was being ravaged by shoppers looking for cheap goods. I walked away from the fray and headed to the old food court, passing by the bronze statue replica of a 1613 boar, which symbolizes the good fortune of the straw market of Firenze, Italy. To the right another tablet marks another Strawbridge and Clothier anniversary, the 75th. The tablet quotes a May, 1943, editorial by the Philadelphia Inquirer; “Strawbridge and Clothier is as distinctively Philadelphia as Carpenter’s Hall or the Betsy Ross House. It merits the heartiest congratulations upon the occasion of its 75th anniversary.”

A stone carving of another set of lies — useless chest-thumping that amounted to very little in the bank accounts of the May Company.

The food court is barren. Only one case holds any food — a few bowls of pasta salad, shiny, greasy hot dogs rolling on a grill and some luncheon meat. The chocolate cases are empty and unlit. The green neon food court sign glows above a bronze tablet memorializing the loss of employees who died in wars. The sounds of shoes and the squeaks of sneakers echo in this empty cavern. There’s nothing left to see here, folks. Turn around and walk away.

When you walk around the store bereft of merchandise, you’re forced to look at the carved metal art deco doors with art deco murals above them. The bronze clocks in the marble tick down the moments to closing, and the Bassett’s Ice Cream stand still looks as grand as it did in the 1930’s, mirrors frosted with the Bassett’s logo, carved wood counters and chilled but empty ice cream cases. So much history left to die.

And yes, I do mean die. Rehabilitation may preserve the physical presence of the building, but it doesn’t mean that the true history of the building remains. Would turning the Betsy Ross House into a boutique hotel still be historic preservation?

I have to leave. I can’t stand hearing the employees talk about their severance pay. Nor can I bear to watch the managers maintain their loyalty to a company that sells them out as they try to keep the sad effects that are Strawbridge’s present merchandise neat. The fools.

For the May company, it’s all about branding and selling the same merchandise with the same name across America. No more individual store-owned labels. We’ll all be told that the Macy’s brands are the best. But they’re not. They’re cheap-labor, cheap-material made clothing from China anyone can get anywhere.

This is but a sampling, one of many national examples of how corporations are heating the American culture into one homogenized glass of stale, tasteless milk. And what do Philadelphians do as one of its own labels, it’s own brand is homogenized? We wait and see how corporate America will take care of us.

Just please, do us a favor, don’t embarrass us by leaving the stone-carved lies all around the Strawbridge and Clothier building. We’d hate to think anyone ever tried to do anything that involved the principles of integrity. Those went out of style years ago.