30 years since A&S vanished what went wrong??

 On April 30,1995 was Abraham and Straus final day. The store founded in Brooklyn, NY was no more after 130 years in business end of an era in NY department store history. Most stores were converted to Macy’s and Stern’s immediately when the first day of May came while one converted to Bloomingdale’s which was their newest store at Roosevelt Field mall which opened in 1992 and  extended their sales to clean house before the Bloomingdale’s touch came to that location. Meanwhile the  Woodbridge store would be sold to Sears and opened later that year. 

What exactly happened??!! Macy’s merger with Federated department stores  in 1994 meant changes where going to happen as that chain saved themselves from bankruptcy. As the new millennium was approaching, Macy’s got bigger knocking off regional chains of the Federated family such as Jordan Marsh and after 2000 Stern’s, Liberty House, Burdine’s, Rich’s, Lazarus, Filene’s and others and another big merger in the mid 2000’s with May department stores eliminating all their regional chains such as Famous Barr, L.S. Ayres, Foley's, Strawbridge's, Hecht's but not touching Lord and Taylor which was sold to Hudson Bay in Canada. Macy’s, Bloomingdale’s and Blue Mercury became Macy’s INC and headquartered in Cincinatti, Oh. 

To the present day, Macy’s has been closing stores left and right along with concept stores Market by Macys and Macys backstage which I would consider a modern day version of the budget stores from the past. 

A&S will always be missed 30 years later. As they said in their commercials it was terrific. but if the Macy acquisition didn’t happen would they be around today in 2025?? I would say no they still woulda been eliminated. Online shopping entered the chat and a lot of consumer confidence was up and down with the economy collapse of 2008 and the Covid 19 pandemic 5 years ago its stretching it but they woulda still been gone beforehand. 1865-1995 😢😢😢

                                        The one page ad in all NY newspapers on April 30,1995

The best is yet to come eh?? Not today in 2025



It was past April 30th and Roosevelt Field in Long Island remained open till the store was cleaned out 






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