Alexander's: memories of past times - Alexander's Department Stores - Column

Discount Store News, June 1, 1992 by Arthur Markowitz

When my wife, Ruth, and I were growing up in the Bronx (more years ago than I would like to acknowledge), Alexander's was the place to shop. In those days you could buy designer samples, one-of-a-kind dresses, manufacturer overstocks in-season, knockoffs of the newest Paris fashions and quality private label goods (men's dress shirts lasted forever) and imports.

Alexander's offered fashion, quality and value to upwardly mobile, low- and middle-income consumers. It had a lockhold on this market and in the '60s marched into the suburbs lockstep with its customers.

Its fortunes started to change in the late '60s. Founder George Farkas, an intuitive merchant, retired at the end of 1968 and Alexander's fashion awareness and value marketing slowly faded. The advent of specialty retailers magnified its decline.

First, neighborhood one- and two-unit businesses began selling fashion/value goods like designer overruns. Then Loehmann's, (another Bronx retailer that grew into a multi-store chain), Filene's, Marshalls and Sym's captured the fashion/value market, underselling Alexander's. The Gap, The Limited and Limited Express and the continuous promotions at upscale department stores vaporized what was left of Alexander's fashion/value merchandising.

Alexander's failed to recognize and respond to changes in the marketplace. It didn't trade up to name brand apparel to match the new fashion interest of its former customers, nor did it develop a low-cost operation to serve new low- and middle-income consumers who were now shopping discounters or neighborhood bargain stores.

Alexander's in the '70s tried--and failed--to leverage its real estate holdings. Alexander's wanted to develop its Paramus, N.J., store into a shopping center. Alex Egyed, the late president of Basco, acquired by Best Products in 1982, related that in the mid-'70s he discussed opening a catalog showroom in the proposed center, but Alexander's management rejected the idea. He said Alexander's executives didn't know what they wanted: they didn't think like developers and as retailers they were afraid Basco would too strong a competitor in jewelry and housewares.

Alexander's died as a retailer at the end of 1980, when Interstate Properties, a leading New Jersey developer, bought a major stake in the company. It aimed to do to Alexander's what it did to Two Guys--turn it into a real estate holding company. It took 12 years for rigor mortis to finally set in.