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Residents recall shopping in town before midnight sales, Internet and Black Friday |
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Front Page -
Front Page Story
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Written by Colin McGuire
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Friday, 27 November 2009 |
Snowflake lights and traffic lights illuminate the downtown business district Thursday night, hours before shoppers are expected to begin their holiday buying. (Photo by Tom Chapin/The Punxsutawney Spirit)
PUNXSUTAWNEY — Mary Ann Levy has a problem: She can't find a pair of shoes to fit her uniquely-tiny feet. The next time she comes across a rip on the outer sides of her current pair of footwear, or a tiny hole in the sole that slowly allows any outside precipitation to seep through, dampening her socks and feet, she knows the task of finding another pair of shoes sized 4A is going to be daunting.
Why? That's simple. No one in town carries footwear that small. Just ask her husband, Morey.
"I can't get a pair of shoes in town any more," he said. "Now, I have to go on the computer to find shoes that small."
Morey Levy should know. For a little over 35 years, he owned Eddie's Mens & Boys Wear, a shop that used to be a cornerstone for Punxsutawney's thriving downtown area, an area which featured a plethora of small shops that provided almost anything and everything a shopper could ask for.
It's this time of year that shops such as Levy's may be missed the most. With Thanksgiving gone, and the holiday shopping season in full effect, most Punxsutawney area residents may have the thought of gifts on their mind. And while the failing economy seems to be looking more positive now than it has in the past 15 months, many area shoppers may be yearning for a time when most residents didn't have to travel far to find what they needed for the holidays — a time when people lined the streets of Punxsy's downtown area to not only partake in holiday shopping activities, but to make sure they gave their business to local establishments, and money was being pumped back into local homes.
"It was something to talk about," Connie Bellerillo, an area resident who worked at McCrory's little 5 & 10 from 1948 to 1965, said while reflecting on the holiday shopping season of yesteryear. "It was different then, than it is now. People got dressed up. They never came in jeans. Everybody always looked really nice."
Bellerillo, who worked at the candy counter, explained that clothing wasn't the only difference between modern day shopping and the 19 years she spent working at McCrory's.
"We had no scanners, or anything like that," she said. "Nothing was electronic, and we had to do everything by hand. I made $11 a week, and we never got any raises or bonuses (for work during the holiday season). We worked 10 hour days, and our boss used to say, ‘If you don't show up on Sunday, don't bother coming in on Monday.'"
Bellerillo explained that while the store in which she worked landed right next to a bigger, more expansive shop — Murphy's 5 & 10 — McCrory's held its own during the holiday shopping season.
"It wasn't cutthroat, like today," she said. "Nothing was really competitive, and everybody was very personable. Everyone treated everyone else as though they were a member of their own family."
Bev Lingenfelter, part owner of the current Roseman's Florist & Gifts on West Mahoning Street, echoed Bellerillo's sentiments. Lingenfelter herself knows a thing or two about the intricacies of being a candy counter worker, considering she acted as Bellerillo's direct competition, manning the candy counter at Murphy's during the early 1960s.
"We were always so busy," Lingenfelter said. "The store was crowded, and it was all a part of the downtown shopping area, which was huge. We didn't have any malls, so everyone gathered at all the shops downtown. It was so much fun."
Both Lingenfelter and Bellerillo pointed out that during their time working at the respective department stores, neither entity acknowledged or adjusted its sales or schedules to many of the modern day gimmickry that seems to come hand-in-hand with holiday shopping. According to both former candy counter workers, even such an enormous cultural event as Black Friday didn't exist when they were behind the counter.
"We were always open on Fridays until 9 (p.m.)," Lingenfelter explained.
"Sometimes, after 5 (p.m.), we might have had 25 percent off all things in the store," added Bellerillo, about what McCrory's sometimes offered. "But everything was usually on a pretty even keel."
One store that has made no secret about adjusting its hours for the holiday shopping season is Beatty's Jewelers. According to Dave Beatty — whose father opened the store more than half a century ago — the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas has almost always been a period that has produced big numbers for the jeweler.
"My dad always used to say that we had to stay open later on Thursday nights," Beatty said. "Friday and Saturday nights have usually been good for us, too."
Beatty pointed out that by the time he was old enough to help out around the store, his father had already figured out the finer nuances of what it took to get the most out of the holiday sopping season, especially what became known as Black Friday.
"He always used to keep the store open late on Friday," Beatty explained. "By 4 p.m. on Saturday, though, we shut it down because we knew everybody would go out of town to the malls. But what we found was that a good percentage of those people who thought they could find what they were looking for elsewhere came back the following week. They would tell us how they would be looking all over for certain items, and the only place they could find it was here. We have a good amount of faithful followers who we can always count on to come back."
A faithful follower of the Punxsutawney shopping scene is Jaime Sherry, a Punxsy resident who prides herself on making what she calls "gifts from the heart," or, as she described, presents that are typically self-made.
"I like to make a lot of my own gifts," Sherry said. "And I try to stay in town as much as possible to get the materials for the gifts."
Sherry explained that while the official shopping season has hardly begun, she has made it a point to get what she can done before the madness begins. And though she has explored other options — such as venturing to Pittsburgh and surrounding areas for gifts — Sherry insists she does what she can to keep her purchases close to home.
"I start shopping earlier in November," she said. "One time, though, I remember going to DuBois (to shop), and it was completely insane. People were fighting, and the whole thing was a mess. So now I try to avoid all of that when I can. I really do my best to stay in town to shop."
Sherry added that she enjoyed her time at Punxsy's Smart Shop, a store that specialized in ladies' apparel and was one of the many places where holiday shoppers could find possible gift ideas.
Helen Neko knows a thing or two about the Smart Shop. She worked there for nearly 50 years, beginning her tenure in 1950 and retiring when the shop's run came to an end in 1999.
"It was at the center of the town," Neko said about the Smart Shop's early days. "And I was a jack of all trades. I did a lot of the bookkeeping and most anything else that needed done around the shop."
Neko noted that contrary to many of today's common practices, the Smart Shop's biggest sale days actually came after Christmas.
"It was a mob scene," she said. "In the 1950s, there were around five or six ladies' shops downtown, and there was just so much activity going on around the area."
Levy, whose men's shop succumbed to a tragic fire in 1988, two years after he retired from the store, agreed with Neko, explaining that most of the sales at his store were saved for after the holidays as well.
"The sales weren't before the holidays," he said. "They almost always came once the holiday was over. And we sold stuff, no matter what the cost was. Instead of putting leftover coats away until next season, we would just mark them down until they were sold. Back then, we never had our sales before the holidays."
Sales or no sales, it's hard to argue the difference between the holiday shopping days of yesteryear compared to how the shopping culture operates today. Now, as Levy pointed out, with the growth in popularity of online shopping, in addition to many major retail chains expanding into smaller areas, the entire notion of holiday shopping seems so distant considering what it once was.
"People used to come from miles away, and the streets would be crowded," he said, lamenting on the decades of how Punxsy's shopping culture used to operate and the fond memories those times clearly bring to him. Then, after a quick smile, he continued.
"It really was like something you could only ever see on television."
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Last Updated ( Saturday, 28 November 2009 )
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