Closing of Five-and-Dime Marks End of Era

Now that one of her favorite downtown Los Angeles stores is closing, Edwina Walker wonders where she is going to find a good stockpot, one that she likes to use to make soup.

For 13 years, Walker has come to the Giant Penny store at Broadway and 3rd Street during her lunch hour, just to browse and spot deals she can’t find anywhere else. She’s bought a good, sturdy jacket for her son, some luggage and, of course, those stockpots she can’t seem to find anywhere else.

“I’ve gotten a lot of good stuff,” said the 45-year-old Los Angeles resident. “The store is really going to be missed, because there is no other one like this near work.”

For more than 50 years, the Giant Penny has stood on Broadway, one of the last discount stores from its era that supplied shoppers with everything from catnip to heating pads to rubber boots.

But in the past few years, the five-story building has begun to deteriorate. And like many five-and-dimes from its time, the Giant Penny has become the latest victim of changing retail trends along Broadway, losing its luster among a new generation of shoppers.

On Thursday, its steel shutters will close for good.

As Walker and colleague Rita Haywood, who both work at the County Hall of Administration, glanced through the remaining bins filled with fly swatters and mousetraps, zippers and plastic shoes, they paused by a table piled with cotton underwear, and joked about the sizes and styles. In the few remaining days everything in the store, including the designer underwear, has been marked down to 59 cents.

“I used to come here with my grandmother,” said Haywood, 50, as she picked through the clothing. “I’m going to miss the cheap stockings.”

Throughout the store about a dozen customers silently focused on the bins, pulling and shoving aside gloves and hats and sweatshirts until they found what they wanted. Many were grandparents on fixed incomes, in search of some small gift to spoil their grandchildren with.

“This is the first time I’ve seen Thanksgiving cards this time of year,” said Elaine Honeycutt. “Where else can you get cards like this ahead of time?” she asked happily, saying she would keep them to send to her nine grandchildren.

“I’m going to miss this place because I’ve gotten a lot of things from this store,” said the 69-year-old Los Angeles resident.

Opened in 1945, the store was one of 10 Giant Pennys in California that competed with other five-and-dimes like J.J. Newberrys and Woolworth’s, said owner Bruce Blitz.

In 1958, the business moved to the Pan American Building at Broadway and 3rd. Blitz became co-owner of the store with his brother, Richard, in 1968. It was the first Giant Penny opened, Bruce said, and now it is the last to close.

As he stood at the cash register in the center of the store--his “perch,” as he calls it-- Bruce Blitz said he has seen 30 years “of the total human condition” pass by. He has watched children grow up to have their own children. He has seen an increase in “cardboard condominiums”--makeshift shelters created by the homeless--lining the sidewalks of the once-glamorous theater district.

“You name it, we’ve once sold it,” Blitz said, remembering how his 6,000-square-foot store was once a bustling place that employed 14 full-time workers.

“The last few years have not been so kind,” he said.

There has been some non-retail activity in the building, however.

The empty office space above the store has been used as a movie set for scenes in the sci-fi hit “Blade Runner” and thrillers such as “Black Rain” and “Seven.”

Changing demands for goods and lack of foot traffic are partially responsible for Blitz’s decision to close. He said leaks in the roof and heavy rains have also caused extensive damage to the floors and walls. Blitz said his landlord, who could not be reached for comment, did not want to fix the ceiling or roof.

The building “is at risk of being demolished,” said Don Spivack, deputy administrator of the Community Redevelopment Agency. In 1995, the agency lost a court battle with the landlord, saving it from demolition.

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According to the Los Angeles Conservancy, the structure, built in 1895, was the first commercial building on Broadway and is the oldest multistory structure there.

But even if the building could be saved, stores like the Giant Penny no longer have a chance of surviving in downtown, said Jack Kyser of the Economic Development Corp. of Los Angeles.

“Basically what you are seeing is this constant evolution in retailing on Broadway,” he said. “This is just one more passage. Broadway just doesn’t have the high energy that it once had, and there are no more five-and-dime stores. They have literally been replaced by super drugstores.”

But for Blitz, who grew up in the San Fernando Valley, retail runs in the blood, and he said he will try to open another store somewhere else.

“Our father was in the retail business,” he said. “I came downtown when I was 21, and now I’m 51. You’re talking about my life.”