When Variety Was the Spice of Life

The fast-fading visage of F.W. Woolworth Co., the old-fashioned dime store that once graced town centers across America, has many people waxing nostalgic, remembering the days of yore, before America was malled up the kazoo, when the last picture show was screening double features and the variety store still reigned as retail king.

The chain plans to close 89 of its 1,000 Woolworth and Woolworth Express outlets in an effort to better compete in the cutthroat world of retailing. A number of other retailers have announced similar cutbacks or restructurings in the wake of a disappointing Christmas season.

Woolworth has a proud history. Frank Woolworth opened his first outlet as the Great Five Cent Store in Lancaster, Pa., in 1879. The first Woolworth store in California opened on Market Street in San Francisco in 1911. The chain hit a peak of 2,130 stores in 1962, with total sales near $1 billion. Today, its 1,000 stores generate sales of about $2 billion. Since 1982, Woolworth’s big push has been into specialty retailing, with chains such as Foot Locker.

The Woolworth stores may not have the glitz of today’s shopping, but there’s a special sense of comfort and continuity in a place where you can still find scrapbooks and cloth doilies. The stores, typically in urban or small-town centers, tug at memories of when a nickel or dime item was enough to elicit squeals of delight--and when you didn’t have to think about cholesterol when you took a swig of a malt at the soda counter.

Those were the days.