It may come as no surprise to South Jersey residents that the last Kmart store in the mainland U.S. – in Bridgehampton, New York – closed on Oct. 20. The retailer, known for the popular catchphrase “Attention Kmart Shoppers” and its Blue Light Specials, left New Jersey entirely in 2023.
The end of Kmart may evoke memories of our own favorite department and other retail stores: Lit Brothers, John Wanamaker’s, Gimbel’s, Klein’s, Lord & Taylor, Bamberger’s – heck, even the neighborhood Sears. Lost discounters included the likes of Two Guys, Grant’s and Woolworth’s, the latter often called a five and dime and a place where you could pay 10 cents for a hamburger at the counter.
Specialty stores have also seen their share of closures. There is one Blockbuster Video store left in Bend, Oregon. Payless Shoe Source is gone as well, after years in local malls. Border’s Books – including a fondly remembered location in Marlton – are gone, victims of something called Amazon.
Even dollar stores have taken a hit: Family Dollar announced in April that it would close 1,000 stores. And drug stores are facing headwinds, some of it from organized shoplifting; that’s why items like Old Spice cologne and Colgate toothpaste are now behind glass. Walgreen’s just announced it would close 1,200 locations over the next three years, following closings by CVS and Rite Aid.
Retailers have been in a pinch for years, mostly due to competition from online sellers. The likes of Macy’s and Boscov’s have hung on, but they’re competing for buyers, too, especially at malls whose numbers are dwindling.
Locally, there is one department store – Boscov’s – left at the former Echelon Mall in Voorhees, now known as the Town Center. Moorestown Mall hasn’t gone away entirely, but in recent years it has needed more than just shoppers to stay alive. It now draws customers to new restaurants – the township voted to allow liquor there in 2011 – and plans are in place for a two-story entertainment center.
Should we have seen all this coming? Maybe. Take Sears, for instance. With a catalog of more than 500 pages that sold everything from baby chicks to pre-fabricated houses beginning in 1883, no one would have guessed it would be gone in the early ’90s. The Christmas version alone was a child’s must-have.
But maybe it isn’t gone entirely. Amazon, you could say, is really an online version of the catalog with a seemingly infinite number of products. They include a French fry holder for the car and a baguette pillow. You can also shop for a casket. The Sears catalog didn’t have those, but you could buy a mail-order tombstone.
As for Kmart, nostalgia inspired former employee Mark Davis to preserve cassette tapes of some of the chain’s in-store music and announcements and upload them to archive.org in 2015, according to the New York Times.
“I think, personally, music evokes an emotional side of your brain,” he told NPR that year. “And it can bring you back to earlier times … You recall, and you can kind of transplant yourself back to that. So it does bring me back to simpler times – and those were simpler times.”
