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| Industry | Retail |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1867 |
| Defunct | 1995 |
| Fate | Purchased by The Bon-Ton |
| Headquarters | Buffalo, New York |
| Products | Clothing, footwear, bedding, furniture, jewelry, beauty products, and housewares. |
Adam, Meldrum & Anderson Company (AM&A's) was a chain of department stores based in Buffalo, New York. It was an institution to generations of shoppers in the Buffalo area. The company remained family owned until its sale to The Bon-Ton in 1995.
The company was founded in 1867, as Adam, Meldrum & Whiting, at 308-310 Main Street. Co-founder Robert Borthwick Adam, was a brother of the founder of J. N. Adam & Co. In 1876, William Anderson joined the company after Whiting departed and it was renamed Adam, Meldrum & Anderson. In 1886, the company pioneered the use of electricity at a commercial enterprise in Buffalo with the installation of a Westinghouse generator. The company incorporated in 1892. In 1896, it joined the Syndicate Trading Company, a retail joint purchasing company based in New York City. From 1925 to 1956, it operated the Adam, Meldrum & Anderson State Bank, which merged with M&T Bank. In 1942, Robert Adam III, grandson of the founder, became President and served in that capacity until 1980; then serving as Chief Executive Officer until his death in 1993. The chain was purchased by The Bon-Ton Stores Inc. in 1994.
The original store was located on Main Street in the current site of the Main Place Mall. A $500,000 (~$7.05 million in 2023) expansion of the store occurred in 1924, adding 70,000 square feet (6,500 m2) to the original location. In 1932, the store expanded northward with the purchase of the Hudson's store at 410 Main Street. From the 1940s until its closing, the store was known locally for its elaborate Victorian Christmas windows. In August 1960, the chain moved its flagship across the street to 389 Main Street in the building formerly occupied by J. N. Adam & Co. After expanding warehouse space in adjacent buildings, a major remodeling of the store occurred in 1966; it was remodeled again a decade later. The store also had a restaurant, the Yankee Doodle Room, which operated from 1960 until 1993; then reopened for a short time as a gourmet market and deli. The flagship store operated as a Bon Ton until 1995. It reopened for eight months in 1998 as Taylor's, an upscale ladies department store. On February 20, 2009, the former flagship store complex was added to the National Register of Historic Places as the J.N. Adam-AM&A Historic District. [1] In 2015, a New York City-based development group purchased the building with the intention of converting it into a 10 floor, 300-room, Asian-themed hotel and restaurant complex. [2]
AM&A's opened the first branch location of a downtown department store in 1948, when it opened a 5,000-square-foot (460 m2) store at University Plaza. In 1950, they opened a branch at Sheridan Plaza in Tonawanda. In October 1952, they took over the former E. W. Edwards & Son location at L.B. Smith Plaza, later Abbott Road Plaza, in Lackawanna; it closed in 1971. In 1958, a store opened at Thruway Plaza, later Thruway Mall. That location would close in 1990, when the Walden Galleria location opened in a store originally constructed for B. Altman.
During the 1960s through 1980's, many major malls were erected throughout suburban Buffalo and AM&A's expanded to most of them. An 18,000-square-foot (1,700 m2) store opened at Southgate Plaza in 1961, expanded to 100,000 square feet (9,300 m2) in 1964. [3] The Eastern Hills Mall location opened in 1972, Lockport Mall store in 1974, and Olean Center Mall in 1976. A store opened in 1979, as part of an expansion to the Summit Park Mall. After the closure of the local Hens & Kelly chain in 1982, AM&A's moved into its former location at Northtown Plaza. The McKinley Mall Location opened in 1985. All branch locations operating in 1994, became branches of The Bon Ton.
In addition to the retail locations, AM&A's operated a bedding and furniture warehouse in the former Pierce Arrow Automobile Manufacturing Facility on Elmwood Avenue @ Great Arrow Street in Buffalo. Customer orders from the retail stores were sent to the warehouse where the items were pulled from stock and inspected for damages. Any scratches, dings, or dents in wood items were corrected by a team of two furniture refinishers. Orders were then set out for delivery to the customers home.
Parisian Inc. was an American chain of upmarket department stores founded and headquartered in Birmingham, Alabama. Competing mainly through the 1980s against Nordstrom, Neiman Marcus, and Gus Mayer, Parisian underwent a series of restructurings and mergers during its 130-year history, and was taken over by Proffitt’s, Inc. in 1996. In September 2006, Belk purchased Parisian from Saks for $285 million with twenty-four locations later becoming Belk by September 2007. Belk sold four stores in Michigan, Indiana, and Ohio to The Bon-Ton in October 2006. Bon-Ton operated these stores individually under the Parisian name until 2013 when the exclusive marketing rights to operate under the Parisian name expired, marking the end of this upmarket department store.
Manhattan Mall was an indoor shopping mall at 33rd Street and Sixth Avenue in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. There are entrances to the New York City Subway's 34th Street–Herald Square station and the PATH's 33rd Street station on the second basement level.
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Sogo Co., Ltd. is a department store chain that operates an extensive network of branches in Japan. In 2009, it merged with The Seibu Department Stores, Ltd. (株式会社西武百貨店) to become Sogo & Seibu Co., Ltd. (株式会社そごう・西武). It once owned stores in locations as diverse as Beijing in China, Causeway Bay in Hong Kong, Taipei in Taiwan, Jakarta and Surabaya in Indonesia, Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia, Singapore, Bangkok in Thailand, London in United Kingdom, but most of these international branches are now closed or operated by independent franchisees.
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H. C. Prange Co., sometimes shortened to Prange's, was an American department store chain begun by H. C. Prange in 1887 in Sheboygan, Wisconsin. At its peak, it operated stores in the states of Wisconsin, Illinois, and Michigan. It also operated discount stores under the Prange Way name in the former two states, although this division was sold off in the 1990s. Prange's was dissolved and most of the stores converted to the rival Younkers chain after sale in 1992.
Proffitt's was a department store chain based in Alcoa, Tennessee. The chain was founded in 1919 by David W. Proffitt and James Ellis. In 2006, the Proffitt's and McRae's stores were converted into Belk after Belk had acquired the two chains in July 2005 from Saks, Inc. At the time of their demise they operated 47 Proffitts & McRae's stores.
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Bonton Holdings Inc. operating as Bonton was an American department store chain and group founded in 1898. It operated in Western New York, Pennsylvania, and throughout the Midwestern United States. The former York, Pennsylvania-based company BonTon filed for bankruptcy in February 2018 and sold the name to CSC Generation, which sold it to BrandX.com in 2021, operating an e-commerce site under the brand name. Along with Bergner's, Boston Store, Carson's, Elder-Beerman, Herberger's, and Younkers, the names of most of the defunct retail group's department store chains are owned by BrandX.
Walden Galleria is a regional shopping mall located in Cheektowaga, a suburb of Buffalo, New York located east of Interstate 90 and New York State Thruway exit 52 off Walden Avenue. The Walden Galleria comprises more than 1,600,000 square feet (150,000 m2) of retail space, with 170 stores on two levels, including a food court and a movie theater. In 2021, it was listed among the top 20 most visited shopping centers in America, attracting over 23 million visitors from the US and Canada. The mall is owned and managed by The Pyramid Companies of Syracuse, New York, the same management firm which developed it. The mall features Macy's, JCPenney, Primark, Dick's Sporting Goods, Best Buy, in addition to a 16-screen Regal Cinemas which also features 4DX.
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The Elder-Beerman Stores Corp., commonly known as Elder-Beerman, was an American chain of department stores founded in 1883 and whose last stores closed in 2018. The chain, based primarily in the Midwestern United States, was composed of 31 stores in eight states at the time of its liquidation in 2018, and peaked around 2003 with 68 stores and $670 million in annual sales.
The Plaza, formerly known as Evergreen Plaza, was a shopping mall in Evergreen Park, Illinois, United States. It was legally organized by Arthur Rubloff, who is also credited with coining the phrase "Magnificent Mile" describing the upscale section of Michigan Avenue north of the Chicago River to Oak Street. Rubloff secured the funding for the Evergreen Plaza from the Walgreen family who lived nearby in Beverly, Chicago. The Evergreen Plaza operated from 1952 to 2013. It featured over 120 stores, as well as a food court. The mall closed in 2013 and became an outdoor shopping center. Anchors include Whole Foods Market, and Burlington Coat Factory.
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The J. N. Adam & Co., commonly referred to as J. N.'s, was a department store located in Buffalo, New York that became part of the Associated Dry Goods Corporation.
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L. L. Berger was a high-end department store based in Buffalo, New York. The family owned store was started by Louis L. Berger in 1905, at 500 Main Street. The company grew through the next two decades and opened its flagship store at 514 Main Street on February 4, 1929. The first suburban branch opened in 1953, at Thruway Plaza in Cheektowaga, New York, followed in 1960, with a location at Sheridan Plaza, in Tonawanda (Town), New York. At the death of its founder in 1967, the L. L. Berger company was "compared in fashion retailing to Saks Fifth Avenue and Lord and Taylor in New York, I. Magnin in San Francisco, and Neiman Marcus in Dallas." Expansion continued with stores opening in 1969, at the Seneca Mall, in West Seneca, New York and 1970, at the Northtown Plaza in Amherst, New York. Additional stores opened in 1975, at the Lockport Mall, in Lockport, New York; in 1982 at the Transitown Plaza in Clarence, New York; in 1988 at the McKinley Mall, in Hamburg, New York; and in 1989 at the Walden Galleria in Cheektowaga, New York. A second Buffalo location opened at 510 Elmwood Avenue in the early 1980s. The company filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 1991. In the early 2000s the flagship store was renovated to be upscale apartments and commercial space.
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The Shoppes at Trexler, formerly Trexler Mall, is an open-air shopping center and former enclosed community shopping mall in Trexlertown, Pennsylvania.
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