7 New York Stores Everyone Over 60 Shopped At That No Longer Exist

At Loehmann’s, you got bargain designer goods and communal dressing rooms.

Not anymore.

These are the New York stores many New Yorkers over 60 shopped at that no longer exist.

1. Alexander’s

Alexander’s reached its peak of 16 stores in the New York metropolitan area in 1980, according to a company history.

It started out in the Bronx.

If you shopped at its Fordham Road store, you were at the company’s headquarters.

It kept prices low by avoiding a downtown location and buying instead of renting its properties.

That put it somewhere between a full-service department store and a discount store.

Alexander’s sold goods in department stores across the New York metropolitan area before it filed for Chapter 11 on May 15, 1992.

The company later said it had terminated its retail business and was now exclusively in real estate.

2. Sibley’s

Sibley’s story in Rochester starts with a Boston Store at 73 East Main Street in 1868.

A new six-story building at East Main and North Clinton followed in 1905.

Expansion began with a Penfield store in 1955 and ultimately reached 15 stores in the Rochester and Buffalo areas.

The sixth-floor Tower Restaurant, originally the Tea Room, was an elegant space frequented by the city’s wealthy citizens.

The store’s annual Christmas decorations were immensely popular.

May bought the company in 1986.

The downtown store dropped to three floors in 1988 and went out of business in 1990.

The suburban stores, still owned by May, were consolidated into May’s Kaufmann’s department store chain.

You may remember the old East Main Street building.

It later became a Monroe Community College campus and then Sibley Square, which held apartments as of 2020.

3. Caldor

If you shopped in New York in April 1998, you had 43 Caldor stores to choose from.

That was more than in any other state the chain served.

Caldor ran 145 stores in nine states at that point.

It had been in Chapter 11 since September 1995.

In January 1999, the company announced it was closing its 145 stores for good.

The announcement covered stores in nine East Coast and Mid-Atlantic states, New York among them.

Caldor had been aiming to emerge from bankruptcy that spring, but a group of secured creditors refused to agree to the board’s reorganization plans, and the company chose to liquidate.

In Flushing, the Caldor at Main Street and Roosevelt Avenue reportedly drew about 5,000 shoppers a day.

The store manager had to tell 280 workers they would soon be out of work.

The chain was also closing stores in Middle Village and Glen Oaks.

Going-out-of-business sales were expected to finish by May.

4. AM&A’s

The AM&A’s store was founded on Main Street in Buffalo in 1867 by Robert B. Adam and partners.

The firm became Adam, Meldrum & Anderson when William Anderson joined the partnership in 1876.

Its first branch opened at University Plaza in 1947.

If you shopped at AM&A’s downtown after 1960, you were in the former J.N. Adam building across Main Street.

AM&A’s was sold to The Bon-Ton Stores in 1994.

At the time of the sale, most of the branches were converted to Bon-Ton stores, Buffalo’s Channel 2 reported, and months later Bon-Ton announced the downtown store would close.

The downtown store closed in 1995.

5. Ames

Ames had 86 of its 333 stores in New York in March 2002.

That was more than in any other state, with Pennsylvania next at 68.

Ames filed for Chapter 11 on August 20, 2001.

The case was filed in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York.

In August 2002, the company announced it would close all 327 of its stores in about 10 weeks.

You had about 10 weeks for one last Ames trip.

By late August 2002, Ames' creditors had asked a New York bankruptcy court judge for permission to liquidate the company.

6. A&P

A&P had 297 stores in 2015, and 135 of them were in New York.

A&P filed for Chapter 11 in July 2015, its second time in five years, and a month later said it would sell or close every store.

Many A&P stores were auctioned off to regional competitors including Stop & Shop, Acme Markets and Key Food.

Supermarket News listed A&P stores in Yonkers, Bronxville and Mahopac under the purchase agreement with Acme Markets.

The A&P, Waldbaum's and Food Basics banners were sold.

If your A&P was on Long Island, it may have been one of the five locations that closed in October 2015.

7. Loehmann's

Loehmann's opened its first store in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn in 1921.

The first Bronx store followed nine years later on Fordham Road.

If you lived in the Bronx in 2014, your Loehmann's was at 5740 Broadway in Kingsbridge.

The Riverdale Press called the chain renowned for its bargain designer goods and communal dressing rooms.

In January 2014, a court authorized going-out-of-business sales at 39 locations in 11 states and Washington, D.C.

It was the company's third bankruptcy, after 93 years in business.

Three liquidation firms were set to run the sales.

The Upper West Side store, on Broadway between 73rd and 74th streets, closed its doors for good on February 26, 2014.

It was one of four Loehmann's in New York City.