Woolworth's Record Department (and Other 5 & 10)

[Quad Linda]

Woolworth's
They were bigger in the UK than the US, and they were HUGE in America!
Woolworth UK 60's music page: http://www.woolworthsmuseum.co.uk/1960s-newmusic.htm

Mission Hills, CA record dept. The Brookfield Square mall store west of Milwaukee had a similarly appointed department:


Gallowtree location record dept, Leicester, UK:


70's UK record dept:


Most Woolworth's stores had a record department. Downtown, old shopping districts, strip centers and malls. They were everywhere around Chicago and its' suburbs.

Downtown Chicago Woolworth's, on State St., that great street:


In the 80's, Woolworths began closing many locations around Chicago. There were tons of both full-price LP's and Pickwick titles being blown out for $1. :banana:

In my old neighborhood, we had 2 mega strip malls directly across from each other. One had Woolworth's, Penney's, Murphy's and Sears, all with record dept's. Across the street was McCrory's and Korvette City, which had both a record dept. and a hi-fi salon. Those were the days!

Kresge's, Grant's, Neisner's and Newberry's all had stores around Chicago, as well.

 

[Quad Linda]

Murphy's had a handful of stores around Chicago. The one near my house had a single gondola full of records for years. In the mid-60's, they had a fire. The store was closed for about two years! In the time it had been closed, Korvette City opened across the street. When Murphy's reopened, they had a large record department with cheap prices.

 

[cupboy]

The Woolworth near where I lived as a child burned down. That was cool.

 

[leevitalone1]

believe it or not-- Woolworths started where I grew up:http://www.oneidacountyhistory.org/MomentsInTime/ExploringHistory.asp
here is our record dept.
The last 45 I remember buying was Mississippi Queen-Mountain

 

[hwkn]

The only Woolworth's that I remember selling records[though not many]was the one up in Sturgeon Bay Wisconsin.[the one near where I work didn't have records......at least that I recall].

 

[Doug G.]

I have specific memories of buying The Lovin' Spoonful's "Daydream" album and the first two Monkees albums at Woolworths in my hometown.

I'm sure I bought a lot of others there too but, for some reason, I particularly remember those.

Thanks for the great pictures, Linda.

Doug

 

[Quad Linda]

My first copy of War's The World is a Ghetto came from Neisner's in Crystal Lake Plaza. In '65, the store was hit by a tornado.


Of course, they rebuilt. There was also a Woolworth's in Crystal Lake.

 

[Quad Linda]

Exterior of Brookfield Square Woolworth's, Brookfield, WI:

When the mall opened in '68, you could buy records at Brookfield Music (killer selection), Allied Radio, Sears, Penneys, Boston Store and Woolworth's.

Although I couldn't find a photo of the Sturgeon Bay, WI Woolworth's, I did locate a pic of Cherry Point Mall which had a nice CD/Video store:


Are you referring to the Woolworth's on Davis St. in Downtown Evanston, IL? As I recall, they didn't carry records! I used to manage the Pacific Stereo on Church St., which was the other side of the block. Lawry's Records (later Rose) was the place to buy wax in Evanston.

The only Woolworth's that I remember selling records[though not many]was the one up in Sturgeon Bay Wisconsin.[the one near where I work didn't have records......at least that I recall].

 

[hwkn]

Yes I was.......btw I found out that cd/video store[on cue]was part of the Sam Goody/Musicland chain at the time

 

[Doug G.]

The Woolworth's here at Apache Mall was on a corner so it had two entrances/exits just like many of the Woolworth's that were in dedicated buildings in downtown areas.

Doug

 

[Quad Linda]

Woolworth's Stereo Spectacular '71 TV ad (on Soulful Detroit website): http://soulfuldetroit.com/showthread.php?6515-Woolworths-The-place-to-get-your-soul-LP-s-!!

 

[Quad Linda]

1980 Woolworth record blitz bag:


Beatles headquarters:

 

[quadsearcher]

The last thing I remember buying at Woolworths was a (stereo of course) Pearls Before Swine 8-track as a cutout.

 

[leevitalone1]

1980 Woolworth record blitz bag:
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Beatles headquarters:
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Will never forget when the Beatles came to the US. Woolworths had it all, Beatle boots, wigs, of course records and everything else that was associated with them. The whole store was a Beatle fest.

 

[John Svensson]

"Although I couldn't find a photo of the Sturgeon Bay, WI Woolworth's, I did locate a pic of Cherry Point Mall which had a nice CD/Video store:".......
Wow Linda.... I was stationed in Sturgeon Bay making mine hunter Navy vessels, I owned a house about 2 miles from Cherry Point circa 1990-91. Then they opened a Walmart on the edge of town and it was downhill.
There was a small mom & pop record store on Main Street also. Never grew up with a Woolworth's though, up in Ithaca in the 70's we had a "Monkey Wards". John

 

[JonUrban]

Woolworths branched into superstores called "Woolco's" and they were a great place to find racks of cut-out 8 tracks at the end of the '70s, early '80s, until they closed all of their stores. Grabbed quite a few Q8's from those bins. Could spot most of them from across the room!

 

[Quad Linda]

Crazily, Montgomery Ward was late in saturating Chicago. It's where they were headquartered! They had a few suburban and a downtown store, all called the Fair. In the mid-60's, they converted all their Fair locations to Ward's. Prior to that move, they were negotiating with Korvettes to buy that chain and convert them to Ward's, which fell through. The Ward's stores had great record departments, but the pricing wasn't that sharp. There were two dozen Ward's around Chicago, most of them were 250,000+ square foot behemoths in megamalls.


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As large as this Fair store was, it was nearly doubled in size in the early '70's, when it was Ward's. It was the Fair in '62, when the mall opened and it was three floors then. In '63, it was the first Fair location converted to Monkey Ward's. The pictured location is at Randhurst, in the Chicago 'burb of Mt. Prospect, the second indoor regional mall in the US. (Southdale in Edina, MN was the first indoor mall.) Randhurst had a then unprecedented three department stores and 100 other stores. It was shaped like an equilateral triangle, with a department store at each corner. The Ice Rink outbuilding hosted concerts by Styx, Wishbone Ash, Edgar Winter and many others. The mall was designed by Victor Gruen, who also designed Southdale and two dozen other malls. You could buy records in the mall at Ward's, Carson's, Wieboldt's, Kresge's, Sun Drugs and Randhurst Music. In '71, Randhurst faced stiff competition from nearby Woodfield, which has five anchor stores and 300 others. Sadly, Randhurst was torn down in '08, and a lifestyle center replaces it. The 3-level Carson Pirie Scott store is still operational and the only part of the original Randhurst mall that's left. Pleasant Family Shopping, a wonderful weblog dedicated to retailing, has a great post on Randhurst: http://pleasantfamilyshopping.blogspot.com/2008/10/requiem-for-randhurst.html

Ward's Randhurst:


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Ward's even had records of their own:


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their own line of Airline audio gear:

View attachment 14373

and, they created Rudolph:
View attachment 14372

"Although I couldn't find a photo of the Sturgeon Bay, WI Woolworth's, I did locate a pic of Cherry Point Mall which had a nice CD/Video store:".......
Wow Linda.... I was stationed in Sturgeon Bay making mine hunter Navy vessels, I owned a house about 2 miles from Cherry Point circa 1990-91. Then they opened a Walmart on the edge of town and it was downhill.
There was a small mom & pop record store on Main Street also. Never grew up with a Woolworth's though, up in Ithaca in the 70's we had a "Monkey Wards". John

 

[Quad Linda]

Woolco was very late to Chicago. They opened in the mid-70's and were gone by 1980. There were only a handul of them, but Woolworth's were everywhere. They had great cutouts, just as Woolworth's did. Sadly, I got woefully few Q8 cutouts, since I bought most of them the first day they hit the street. With stores like Korvettes and Rose Records, Woolco/Woolworth's record department had little interest to me.

Early Woolco store:


Later design, like all the Chicago stores:

Woolworths branched into superstores called "Woolco's" and they were a great place to find racks of cut-out 8 tracks at the end of the '70s, early '80s, until they closed all of their stores. Grabbed quite a few Q8's from those bins. Could spot most of them from across the room!

 

[surroundophile]

Beg to differ with you Linda. The first Mall in the US was Haurandale Mall opened in the late 50's (I believe '57) outside of Glen Burnie, Md., my home town. I even remenber seeing a piece about it on a news show (maybe 20/20 or 60 Minutes?). Unfortunatrly, it no longer exists in it's original form. It was converted to an outside strip mall in the 90's.

 

[Quad Linda]

I stand partially corrected. Harundale from '58 is older than Randhurst from '62. Southdale from '56 is still the oldest indoor regional mall. Valley Fair in Appleton, Wi is actually older, as it is from '55, but it had a handful of stores, and no big department store, only W T Grant and Woolworth's.