Montgomery Ward/Lechemere/Electric Avenue/Electric Avenue

[Caldor1999]

Originally posted by Jag67
Here's some interior shots of the dixie square location. I'm gonna guess this was the electronics department. Groovy!!

that person must have been high or on acide to make such a crazy looking store like that LOL:insane:

mean while how did they get the name Monkey Wards???????????????????????????????????????????

[Caldor1999]

wards sign

[Zayre88]

Cool sign, i always thought that the company used Montgomery Ward forever until the move to a shorter name and logo: Wards

[Zayre88]

Closing sale at Wards...

[Caldor1999]

Originally posted by Zayre88
Closing sale at Wards...

were is that wards located lol and how did they get the name monkey wards lol?

[Caldor1999]

hears the logo there useing on there web sight now lol therer useing the old one and not the Wards logo

[Caldor1999]

hears a shutterd Montgomery Ward store

[Jag67]

Originally posted by Caldor1999

Originally posted by Jag67
Here's some interior shots of the dixie square location. I'm gonna guess this was the electronics department. Groovy!!

that person must have been high or on acide to make such a crazy looking store like that LOL:insane:

mean while how did they get the name Monkey Wards???????????????????????????????????????????

Well, that store was built in 1965, and in a store built in 1965 there was gonna be ugly crap like that on the walls. Of course, this was one of the last department stores to feature ALL it's orginal 1960's/70's decor, UNTIL IT WAS GUTTED!!!! This store closed in 1977. Was that kind of decor still accepted by the public?? What's funny, is theis place was open for 12 years and has been abandoned for 28...Funny!!

[Caldor1999]

hears my NEW montgomery Wards ologo:yup:

[truviking05]

I think that the name "Monkey Wards" came to be when someone either: a) got sick of saying "Montgomery" and decided that it sounded enough like "Monkey"
or b) Just plain decided that Montgomery sounded a lot like Monkey when you say it sort of fast! LOL it's like a pet name for the store.

[Rayco7030]

2 days ago i saw  a truck with montgomery wards on the side of it

[Caldor1999]

Originally posted by Rayco7030
2 days ago i saw  a truck with montgomery wards on the side of it

i saw one last mounth all it sed was WARDS and the logo waz red

[Caldor1999]

hear something there useing on there web sight heh kinds look like a chain they had Elecritce Ave & More Rooms & More heh

[C. Fontaine]

Here's an ancient Montgomery Ward sign still up on Main St. in Webster, MA.

[Caldor1999]

why is it still up lol and weres the old Montgomery Ward lol did the close and some ojuther store moved in and dident take down the sign lol

[Jag67]

I AGREE TOTALLY!!!

you CAN NOT put a store into a building that has been rotting in decay for 28 years and be sucessful, let alone get people to come to it. It cannot be done. It's just gonna GOB in a few months, destroying a piece of history for no reason. What about the rest of the complex?? I take it that's not gonna be fixed either. So, why would people come to a store in a mall with a forest for a parking lot?? It just cannot be done. The store should've been preserved in it's 60's glory.

What the heck is American kitchen thinking??!!

[truviking05]

I wish that people (including companies like those trying to enter a certain old store in the Mall and open their store for business...you know who I mean!) could just accept Dixie Square as it is--a remembrance of the way things were 30 years ago. Some may call it an eyesore, but I call it history. If they can't leave it alone, the best thing they could do is put some sort of sign designating it as something important...which it is!

Also, I too can't imagine anyone wanting to shop there once it reopens as American Kitchen. What will their Grand Opening flyers say? "Come to American Kitchen! We're located in an abandoned mall! Watch out for the big dogs! And please, take a complimentary gas mask as to avoid mold contamination and allergies! Thank you!"

Even though it may be kind of ugly on the inside, the old Wards, I think, should stay as it is!

[Caldor1999]

teh resion why the mall colsed in the first place
is because of the crime there i think that mall should berestored with a JC Penny Macys Sears to bring it back to life :yup:

[Jag67]

Well, Wards' classic weird interior is gone, how about sparing Penneys, in all it's groovy, weird, psychedelic, acid freak-designed splendor. These stores are preserved history!!! Stores don't look like that anymore, and they never will again. So why can't it just be left alone??

[Jag67]

If the mall cannot be saved (which, unfortunately, it probably cant) they shougld at least make a museum ABOUT it, maybe building it using parts of the mall or something.

[xtsubarublazin]

Originally posted by Caldor1999

Originally posted by Caldor1999
Montgomery Ward and Toys R Us together in one store:holysh::holysh:

lol i love this pic it a Itanian Montgomery Ward

That's at the Villa Italia mall in Lakewood, Colorado. Indeed, it was designed as an Italian terrace, and this Monkey Wards building was one of the few to hold that look throughout the years.

The mall has since been torn down.

A friend of mine said that although the balconies were not accessible, he watched the demolition, and said that they knocked down the exterior wall exposing a conference room which had obviously not been touched since the late 1960s - complete with a red curtain and who knows-what...

Here's a picture of the attached Auto Center.

I have a few more of this location, and I also have pictures of the demolition of another local Ward's, which survived to see the last remodel for the chain. Anyone want to see these?

[truviking05]

I want to see them!!!

[xtsubarublazin]

Originally posted by truviking05
I want to see them!!!

[xtsubarublazin]

Looking into lower level building. Notice the escalators on the left.

[xtsubarublazin]

Looking into one of the side entrances.

[xtsubarublazin]

Demolition of the Auto Center.

[xtsubarublazin]

The original Auto Center sign, as amesman tells me.

[storehistoryguy]

An old Montgomery Ward.

[Caldor1999]

hears a acrtle about Wards closing with was anouther sad blow to the retilr world:(


Montgomery Ward says it's going out of business

Competitors, weak sales doom retail trailblazer

By LESLIE KAUFMAN AND CLAUDIA H. DEUTSCH

New York Times

Friday, December 29, 2000

Montgomery Ward & Co., once the greatest American retailer and the pioneer of many sales practices that became widely accepted, said Thursday that it would go out of business after 128 years.

The company, owned by General Electric, said it would close its 250 stores and dismiss the 28,000 associates who run them in the coming months. It filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection for a second and final time and eliminated 450 national jobs immediately. The company is based in Chicago and operates in 30 states, including one store in Wisconsin, in Green Bay.

Ward said the disappointing holiday season was the final straw. "Sadly, today's action is unavoidable," Roger Goddu, chairman and chief executive, said in a statement. "Overall weak holiday sales and a very difficult retail environment simply did not permit us to complete the turnaround that might have been possible in an otherwise- thriving economy."

Whatever the immediate reason, the demise of Ward was long in the cards. Retail historians dated the start of the decline to the postwar boom of the 1950s, when its rival, Sears, Roebuck and Co., moved aggressively into the then-nascent suburbs, but Ward, under the steely leadership of its then-chief executive, Sewell Avery, hoarded cash and waited for a second Great Depression.

"It has been a slow-motion train wreck," said Sid Doolittle, a Chicago based-retail consultant who was an executive with Ward for 28 years.

In 1872, Aaron Montgomery Ward, a traveling dry goods salesman, started selling to farmers by mail through a one-page catalog list. By inventing the general merchandise mail-order catalog, Ward could keep prices low through bypassing the middlemen, such as small-town shopkeepers and itinerant salesmen. Sears was not founded until 14 years later, and its catalog came years after that.

In 1875, Ward pioneered another practice now taken for granted: "Satisfaction guaranteed or your money back."

A decade later, the Ward book was 240 pages and the shopper's bible for rural folk. The company went public in 1919 and began opening its own stores in the next decade.

Part of Americana

As the company grew into one of the biggest retailers in the country, its colorful history became intertwined with that of the nation.

It was a Ward advertising writer who in 1939 wrote "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" as an illustrated poem to hand out to children visiting Ward's Santa for Christmas.

In 1944, Avery defied the War Labor Board over its attempts to force recognition of a union. President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered that Avery and Ward's Chicago properties be seized. Many newspapers published a front-page picture of the unflappable Avery, his impeccable double-breasted suit and pocket handkerchief unmussed, being carried out of his store by two soldiers.

But Avery and his company were at their height -- a perch soon to be lost. Avery had saved Ward in the 1930s from bankruptcy by foreseeing the Great Depression and halting expansion and saving cash. He repeated this formula after the war, yet this time Sears got it right by spending heavily to be the first to serve consumers in the suburbs blossoming across the nation.

Ward eventually caught on and tried to move to the suburbs, too, although by then Sears was well ensconced in important malls in good locations at intersections of the emerging interstate highway system. Ward could never catch up.

Ward had 16 stores in Wisconsin by 1974, when it employed 1,659 people in the state. The company opened several catalog stores in the state, including the Milwaukee area, in the mid-1930s.

Ad agency off guard

The announcement Thursday will have a major impact on the Milwaukee-based Laughlin/Constable advertising agency.

The agency won the Ward broadcast ad account in 1998, when the account was valued at about $50 million. That account was the largest piece of business at the time for the agency, which handled the work at its Milwaukee and Chicago offices.

Laughlin/Constable spokeswoman Anna Zeck said the agency was surprised at the news of the latest bankruptcy. Zeck was unable to say what effect the bankruptcy would have on agency staffing.

GE takes over

In an attempt to diversify its assets, Mobil Oil bought 54% of Ward in 1974 and then the rest two years later. Mobil invested a lot of money, but Ward continued to struggle. In 1985, it shut down the catalog business that had made its fame.

Three years later, struggling to free itself from Mobil, Ward instead set the stage for another bout of corporate ownership. GE Capital and Kidder Peabody, then a GE subsidiary, helped arrange and finance a $3.8 billion management-led buyout of Ward in 1988. GE Capital retained a 50% stake in the retailer.

Faced with tough new discount competitors such as Target and Wal- Mart, the business continued to flounder and filed for bankruptcy in 1997. By that time, GE Capital had invested $180 million in Ward and lent it far more than that. As part of the bankruptcy reorganization, GE helped recapitalize the company and wound up owning it.

In the years since, GE brought in new management and invested heavily in modernizing the stores, but nothing seemed to pump up sales or profits.

Several analysts recalled a mid-December meeting with GE Chairman Jack Welch and GE Capital Services Chairman Dennis Dammerman at which the two executives acknowledged that Ward would lose $227 million after taxes this year.

"They cited it as one of a number of situations where they were contemplating taking actions to reduce losses," said Martin A. Sankey, who follows the company for Goldman, Sachs.

Analysts not surprised

GE was never particularly enthusiastic about the retail business, and considering the losses, the announcement Thursday did not surprise analysts.

The timing of the Ward closing probably had as much to do with taxes and the reporting of earnings as with stanching the losses. GE reaped $1.4 billion earlier this year from the sale of its stake in PaineWebber, and that gain will probably be used to offset charges associated with the Ward closing.

"The result is that there would be no net impact on earnings from the closure," Sankey said. GE issued a statement confirming that there would be no impact on earnings.

The rough holiday season has already claimed other casualties. Bradlees, a discount chain in the Northeast, said this week that it was going out of business.

Doris Hajewski of the Journal Sentinel staff contributed to this report.

RED-LETTER DAY FOR WARD'S

A Ward advertising writer in 1939 wrote "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" as an illustrated poem to hand out to children visiting Ward's Santa for Christmas.

TIMELINE OF A FADED GIANT

1872: Aaron Montgomery Ward founds the first dry goods mail-order catalog business. The company's first catalog lists 163 items.

1875: Company coins the phrase "Satisfaction Guaranteed or Your Money Back."

1883: Company's 240-page catalog lists 10,000 items.

1900: Records $8.7 million in sales but falls behind Sears, Roebuck and Co., which generates $10 million.

1926: First freestanding retail store opens in Plymouth, Ind.

1928: Opens 244 stores. By 1929, company has 531 stores.

1930: Ward declines proposal to merge with Sears.

1939: Advertising copywriter Robert L. May develops character and illustrated poem "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" for company executives.

1968: Company merges with Container Corp. of America to form Marcor Inc. Mobil Oil Corp. later acquires Marcor.

1985: Company unveils specialty store strategy and discontinues catalog operations.

1988: Management undertakes successful $3.8 billion leveraged buyout, making Ward a privately held company.

1991: Resumes mail-order catalog business.

1994: Ward opens first Electric Avenue & More stores, acquires New England retail chain Lechmere.

1997: Company files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

1999: GE Capital Services purchases Ward, brings it out of bankruptcy. Company abandons specialty store design and begins offering moderately priced apparel, electronics and furniture.

2000: Ward announces plan to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, close 250 stores in 30 states.

2001:Ward closes for good


2004:comes back as a online retiler only

[d_fife]

When WArd's bought lechmere out in 1994, Lechmere went downhill and got junky!

When Ward's filed 8 years ago from THIS TIME, I was afraid it would be the end of Lechmere and I was right.

WArd's closed like 35-40% of its stores. They pulled out of the northeast, They had 3 in NH: NAshua, Bedford and NEwington, and one in Vt: Rutland. They pulled out of the northeast in a round of closings.