Hecht's

Hecht's
Hecht Brothers
The Hecht Company
Type	Subsidiary
Industry	Retail
Founded	1857;166 years ago
Founder	Samuel Hecht, Jr.
Defunct	September 9, 2006
Fate	Acquired by Macy's & Bloomingdale's
Successor	Macy's; Bloomingdale's
Headquarters	Washington, DC, U.S.
Products	Clothing, footwear, bedding, furniture, jewelry, beauty products, and housewares.
Parent	The May Department Stores Company (1959–2005); Federated Department Stores, Inc (2005–2006)
Website	Archived official website at the Wayback Machine (archive index)

Last updated December 13, 2023

Hecht's, also known as Hecht Brothers, Hecht Bros. and The Hecht Company, was a large chain of department stores that operated mainly in the mid-Atlantic and southern region of the United States. The firm originated in Baltimore, Maryland.

By 2005, Hecht's had some 81 stores in 19 markets in Maryland, the District of Columbia, Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Delaware, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. Its locations in New Jersey, Delaware, and the majority of those in Pennsylvania were operated under the name of Strawbridge's. Hecht's administrative office was in Arlington, Virginia.

Hecht's was founded and was operated for over a century (1857–1959) as a family firm. It was purchased in 1959 by The May Department Stores Company which in turn, was acquired by Federated Department Stores on August 30, 2005. On February 1, 2006, Federated dissolved the former May Company divisions, and the existing Hecht's stores were divided between Macy's East and Macy's South, with stores in Delaware, the District of Columbia, Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Northern Virginia going to the former and stores in North Carolina, Tennessee, and the rest of Virginia (roughly much of the former Thalhimers territory) going to the latter. The replacement Hecht's store in Chevy Chase, Maryland, took the Bloomingdale's name.^{[ citation needed ]} On September 9, 2006, the Hecht's name was phased out in favor of the nationally known Macy's.

History

The Hecht Company was founded in 1857 by Sam Hecht, Jr. The Hecht family was Jewish and came from the little village of Langenschwarz (now part of Burghaun), Kreis Hünfeld, Hesse, Germany where Sam was born on December 10, 1830. His father Meyer (a.k.a. Meier or Maier) Hecht was a cattle dealer or driver who was drowned in Langenschwarz on June 12, 1835. Meyer's parents were Anschel (a.k.a. Anshil or Asher) Hecht who was a fur dealer and Güta (a.k.a. Giet) née Goldschmidt who was born in Bellersheim, Kreis Hungen, Hesse, Germany.

Sam's older brother Simeon arrived in America on the ship Agnes on September 2, 1844, listed as Sam Hecht, age 21. Meyer's widow Hannah or Hanne Miriam (née Bachrach) was probably born in Hesse, Germany in 1789 or 1790. She left Germany with Sam and his brother Reuben and immigrated to the United States; they arrived in Baltimore, Maryland, on December 15, 1847, on the ship Schiller.

Sam's brothers Jacob, Moses and Raphael (a.k.a. Vogel) and sister Adelheid (a.k.a. Ettel or Edel) had arrived in Baltimore on the ship Albert on July 31, 1845, which departed from Bremen, Germany. There may have been another brother Ansel (a.k.a. Asher Ralph) who immigrated to Baltimore but he has not been found on any passenger lists. Asher Ralph appears in Baltimore city directories between 1844–1858; Ansel appears in New York City directories from 1858.

Sam Hecht, Jr. became an itinerant peddler selling his goods in and around Baltimore and on the Eastern Shore of the Chesapeake Bay. After a decade of itinerant peddling, he settled down and started what would become the Hecht stores. On Jan 5, 1854, Sam married Babette Wolfsheimer in Baltimore.

Baltimore stores

In 1857 Sam Hecht, Jr. opened a used furniture store on Aliceanna Street (near South Broadway) in Baltimore, Maryland.

By 1870 this venture had moved to a more auspicious location at 519 South Broadway where the name 'HECHT'S RELIABLE STORES' could be seen carved in foot-high letters into the granite cornice above the third floor (now demolished). Clothing was added to the lineup in 1879 under the name of Hecht's Reliable.^[1] Shortly thereafter a carpet and matting establishment was opened in Baltimore at 310 West Lexington Street.

Over the front of the new store on Lexington Street was a sign reading 'Samuel Hecht, Jr. & Sons,' reflecting the development of the firm as a family enterprise. Four of Samuel's sons eventually joined him in business. They were, in order of age: Emanuel (Manny), Albert S., Alexander (Alex), and Moses (Mose) S. Hecht.

Emanuel Hecht joined his father in business in 1880. In 1886, he and his brother Albert were listed as partners with their father. Alex and Mose came into the firm later and contributed to its success. Samuel Hecht., Jr. died on February 7, 1907, in Baltimore. His sons, and later his grandsons, carried on the business.

The growth of the firm continued in Baltimore with the opening of the Hecht Brothers store on Baltimore and Pine streets in 1885, the Hub store in Baltimore in 1897, and Hecht Brothers at Howard and Franklin streets in 1926. Hecht stores were also established in New York City and Easton, Maryland. There was also a branch in Annapolis, Maryland. However, the most important move was into Washington, D.C.

Washington stores

The Hechts opened a store in Washington on March 20, 1896, which moved to a grand glass and marble store at the corner of 7th and F Streets Northwest, in Washington, D.C.'s downtown shopping district, in November 1925. Alexander Hecht directed the Washington part of the business for the family.^[2]

Hecht's was the first store in Washington to offer national brands. It also boasted the first parking garage and first elevator. Its relatively open policies made it popular among African-Americans as well as the white populace.^[3]

A tour of Norman Rockwell's Four Freedoms paintings, intended to rally support for the Allied cause in World War II and the purchase of war bonds, premiered at the store in 1943.^[4]

In July 1951, a mixed race group began to picket outside the store, protesting racial segregation in the store's cafeteria. The offending policy was changed in January of the following year.^[5]

Hecht's moved its flagship store to a new building in downtown Washington in 1985.^[6] The former Hecht Company main building, now across from the Capital One Arena, was extensively renovated and reopened in 2003 as Terrell Place, honoring Mary Church Terrell's role in desegregating that and other public accommodations in Washington.^[3]

Hecht's operated the last local department store in downtown Washington, in a structure at the corner of 12th and G Streets NW built in 1985 and renovated in 2003. Converted to a Macy's location in September 2006, the building has a direct entrance to the Metro Center station of the Washington Metro.^[6]

Into the suburbs

After World War II, Hecht Company began to build new stores in the suburbs around Baltimore and Washington. Outside the center of Baltimore, Hecht's opened a store in Northwood in September 1954, followed by another in Edmondson Village in October 1956, and a third in the then-new Reisterstown Road Plaza in January 1962.

In 1947 they opened a large three-story department store in Silver Spring, Maryland, just north of Washington, D.C. The wisdom of this move was initially questioned; however, within a few years, more room was needed, and a fourth story was added to the building. That store was closed in 1987 and was converted and expanded into City Place Mall, which opened in 1992 and which is now known as Ellsworth Place. The second suburban store opened on November 2, 1951, at Parkington in Arlington, Virginia. It cost $6.5 million to construct the 300,000-square-foot (28,000 m²) store and it was the largest suburban department store on the east coast at that time.^[7] On November 2, 1958, Maryland Gov. Theodore R. McKeldin ceremonially opened the third suburban D.C. Hecht Company store at Prince George's Plaza in Hyattsville.^[8] Gov. J. Millard Tawes did the honors on August 29, 1960, when he opened the fourth suburban D.C. location, the 168,000-square-foot (15,600 m²) store at Marlow Heights Shopping Center.^[9]

May Company

The Hecht chain was acquired by the May Company in 1959. At this time, the historic 1924 Bernheim-Leader store on the corner of Howard and Lexington Streets in Baltimore was renamed Hecht's, becoming its flagship store in the Baltimore area. It closed in 1988, one of the last department stores to remain in the downtown district. In 1998, it was declared a city landmark, and has since been renovated into apartments owned by Southern Management.^[10]^[11]^[12]

Many other stores acquired later were also rebranded as Hecht's. In 1990, Hecht's acquired four Miller & Rhoads stores in Virginia.^[13] That same year, the May company acquired the Thalhimers chain from Carter Hawley Hale Stores.^[13] The following year it was announced that the Thalhimers stores would be folded under the Hecht's name.^[14] When May took over ten Hess's stores, based in Allentown, Pennsylvania, three of them re-opened as Hecht's and the others were operated by corporate siblings Kaufmann's and Filene's. Hecht's acquired Wanamaker's, based in Philadelphia, and Woodward & Lothrop, based in Washington, D.C., taking over 17 stores acquired in 1995 in joint acquisition with JCPenney. Fourteen stores were consolidated the same year. Thirteen of Strawbridge and Clothier's stores, based in the Philadelphia area, were acquired in 1996. Following the acquisition, S&C was renamed Strawbridge's. Their management consolidated with Hecht's the same year, but the Strawbridge name was retained and expanded to all the Philadelphia locations.

In the Nashville area, Hecht's took over selected former Castner Knott stores, which had been purchased from East Tennessee–based Proffitt's in 2001. Proffitt's previously acquired them as a result of the Mercantile Stores/Dillard's merger in 1998, and briefly rebranded them as Proffitt's locations.

Related Research Articles

The May Department Stores Company was an American department store holding company, formerly headquartered in downtown St. Louis, Missouri. It was founded in Leadville, Colorado, by David May in 1877, moving to St. Louis in 1905. After many changes in the retail industry, the company merged with Federated Department Stores in 2005.

John Wanamaker Department Store was one of the first department stores in the United States. Founded by John Wanamaker in Philadelphia, it was influential in the development of the retail industry including as the first store to use price tags. At its zenith in the early 20th century, Wanamaker's also had a store in New York City at Broadway and Ninth Street. Both employed extremely large staffs. By the end of the 20th century, there were 16 Wanamaker's outlets, but after years of change, the chain was bought by A. Alfred Taubman in late 1986, and added to his previous purchase of Woodward & Lothrop, the Washington, D.C., department store. In 1994, Woodies, as it was known, filed for bankruptcy. The assets of Woodies were purchased by the May Company Department Stores and JCPenney. In 1995, Wanamaker's transitioned to Hecht's, one of the May Company brands. In 2006, Macy's opened in the former Philadelphia Wanamaker's Department Store, now called Macy's Center City. The building is a National Historic Landmark. One if its expansions was designed by master architect Daniel Burnham. It contains the Wanamaker Organ, the largest functional organ in the world.

Thalhimers was a department store chain in the Southern United States. Based in Richmond, Virginia, the chain at its peak operated dozens of stores in Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and one store in Memphis, Tennessee. Thalhimer's traditions were most notable during the holiday season with visits from the sticker-distributing Snow Bear and, in later years, the arrival of Lego Land at the downtown Richmond store.

The Oxford Valley Mall is a two-story shopping mall, managed and 85.5 percent-owned by the Simon Property Group, that is located next to the Sesame Place amusement park near Langhorne in Middletown Township, Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Its department stores are JCPenney and Macy's.

Strawbridge's, formerly Strawbridge & Clothier, was a department store in the northeastern United States, with stores in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware. The Center City Philadelphia flagship store was, in its day, a gracious urban emporium. The retailer started adding branch stores starting in the 1930s and, by their zenith in the 1980s, enjoyed annual sales of over a billion dollars By the 1990s, Strawbridge's became part of the May Department Stores conglomerate until May's acquisition by Federated Department Stores on August 30, 2005.

Miller & Rhoads was a Virginia-based department store chain. Throughout its 105-year lifespan, the store played an active role in the Richmond, Virginia community, along with its friendly cross-street rival Thalhimers. The Richmond flagship location was known for its "SantaLand" upstairs attraction, which has since become an attraction at the Children’s Museum of Richmond. In 1987, Campeau purchased Miller & Rhoads and later sold it to Philadelphia developer Kevin Donohoe and store management before closing in 1990.

Garfinckel's was a prominent department store chain based in Washington, D.C. that catered to a clientele of wealthy consumers. Its flagship store at 14th and F in the city's F Street shopping district is listed on the National Register. It filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in June 1990 and ceased operations that year.

Deptford Mall is a major shopping mall in Deptford Township in Gloucester County, New Jersey. Owned and managed by Macerich, it is the county's only indoor regional shopping center.

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Springfield Mall is a 589,000-square-foot (54,700 m²) regional shopping mall located approximately 10 miles (16 km) southwest of Philadelphia in Springfield Township, Delaware County, Pennsylvania. It is located just off Interstate 476 along Baltimore Pike, near its busy intersection with Pennsylvania Route 320. It is serviced by a number of SEPTA bus lines as well as the mass transit system's Route 101 trolley line at the Springfield Mall station, a rarity for suburban Philadelphia shopping malls, many of which are served solely by bus routes.

Lynnhaven Mall is an enclosed super-regional shopping mall in Virginia Beach, Virginia, USA. It opened in August 1981. At 1,170,000 square feet (109,000 m²) of gross leasable area, it is the largest mall in the Hampton Roads metropolitan area of southeastern Virginia and one of the largest malls on the East Coast. The mall contains more than 180 stores, including Dillard's, JCPenney, and Macy's as main anchor stores. Other stores and junior anchors at the mall include Apple, Barnes & Noble, Dick's Sporting Goods, L.L. Bean, XXI Forever, H&M, and Old Navy. Dave & Busters is also a recent addition to the mall and region. An 18 screen AMC Theatres complex anchors an open-air pedestrian plaza. The mall is managed by Brookfield Properties of Chicago, Illinois.

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Peninsula Town Center is an open air mixed-use development located in the Coliseum Central Business improvement district of Hampton, Virginia in the Hampton Roads region. The Town Center is located on the site of the original Coliseum Mall, an enclosed facility constructed in 1973 by Mall Properties Inc. of New York, its only owner. At 991,000-square feet, Peninsula Town Center is the largest redevelopment project in Hampton's history. Mall Properties has teamed with Steiner + Associates, which developed Easton Town Center in Columbus; Zona Rosa in Kansas City; The Greene Town Center near Dayton; and Bayshore Town Center near Milwaukee to create Peninsula Town Center.

Montgomery Mall is a two-story shopping mall located in the community of Montgomeryville in Montgomery Township, Pennsylvania near the borough of North Wales. The mall, owned by Kohan Retail Investment Group, is located along Pennsylvania Route 309 at the intersection with U.S. Route 202 Business, amidst other commercial development. It contains over 90 stores and eateries and is anchored by Dick's Sporting Goods, JCPenney, Macy's, and Wegmans.

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References

↑ Kelly, Jacques. "Shopping in Fells Point at Hecht's Reliable store," The Baltimore Sun, Friday, August 27, 2010.
↑ "Romances of Washington Stores: The Hecht Company First Hecht Store Opened in Capital Only 29 Years Ago". The Washington Post. November 8, 1925. p. F11.
1 2 "Terrell Place/ Hecht Company Site". African American Heritage Trail. Cultural Tourism DC. Retrieved 29 April 2019.
↑ "Rockwell Show at Hecht Store Biggest War Bond Exhibition," The Washington Post, Apr 25, 1943, p. M5.
↑ Mansky, Jackie (June 8, 2016). "How One Woman Helped End Lunch Counter Segregation in the Nation's Capital". Smithsonian Magazine.
1 2 Mui, Ylan Q. (September 9, 2006). "Era Ends With New Beginning Transformation From Hecht's to Macy's Will Be Completed Today". The Washington Post.
↑ "Hecht's New Virginia Shop Opens Today," The Washington Post, Nov 2, 1951, p. B1.
↑ "3000 See Opening of Hecht's Store at Prince Georges Shopping Center," by Hal Willard, The Washington Post and Times-Herald, Nov 4, 1958, p. A16.
↑ "Hecht's to Open 5th Area Store," by Frank C. Porter, The Washington Post and Times-Herald, Aug 28, 1960, p. B6.
↑ Anderson, Jessica; Gantz, Sarah (January 1, 2018). "David Hillman, CEO of Southern Management Corp. and Baltimore-area Developer". Obituaries. The Baltimore Sun . Retrieved August 11, 2018.
↑ Gunts, Edward (August 19, 1999). "Bits of Hecht's History for Sale". The Baltimore Sun . Retrieved August 11, 2018.
↑ "The Atrium: 118 N. Howard Street, Baltimore, MD 21201". Southern Management. Archived from the original on July 30, 2018. Retrieved August 11, 2018.
1 2 Writer, NEIL CORNISH Staff. "MAY TO BUY THALHIMERS FOR $325 MILLION". dailypress.com. Retrieved 2019-04-17.
↑ Potts, Mark (13 November 1991). "15 THALHIMERS TO BE TURNED INTO HECHT STORES". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on 17 April 2019. Retrieved 16 April 2019.

External links

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[jkellytbs-1] Kelly, Jacques. "Shopping in Fells Point at Hecht's Reliable store," The Baltimore Sun, Friday, August 27, 2010.

[2] "Romances of Washington Stores: The Hecht Company First Hecht Store Opened in Capital Only 29 Years Ago". The Washington Post. November 8, 1925. p. F11.

[culturaltourism-3] 1 2 "Terrell Place/ Hecht Company Site". African American Heritage Trail. Cultural Tourism DC. Retrieved 29 April 2019.

[4] "Rockwell Show at Hecht Store Biggest War Bond Exhibition," The Washington Post, Apr 25, 1943, p. M5.

[5] Mansky, Jackie (June 8, 2016). "How One Woman Helped End Lunch Counter Segregation in the Nation's Capital". Smithsonian Magazine.

[wapo2006-6] 1 2 Mui, Ylan Q. (September 9, 2006). "Era Ends With New Beginning Transformation From Hecht's to Macy's Will Be Completed Today". The Washington Post.

[7] "Hecht's New Virginia Shop Opens Today," The Washington Post, Nov 2, 1951, p. B1.

[8] "3000 See Opening of Hecht's Store at Prince Georges Shopping Center," by Hal Willard, The Washington Post and Times-Herald, Nov 4, 1958, p. A16.

[9] "Hecht's to Open 5th Area Store," by Frank C. Porter, The Washington Post and Times-Herald, Aug 28, 1960, p. B6.

[10] Anderson, Jessica; Gantz, Sarah (January 1, 2018). "David Hillman, CEO of Southern Management Corp. and Baltimore-area Developer". Obituaries. The Baltimore Sun . Retrieved August 11, 2018.

[11] Gunts, Edward (August 19, 1999). "Bits of Hecht's History for Sale". The Baltimore Sun . Retrieved August 11, 2018.

[12] "The Atrium: 118 N. Howard Street, Baltimore, MD 21201". Southern Management. Archived from the original on July 30, 2018. Retrieved August 11, 2018.

[:0-13] 1 2 Writer, NEIL CORNISH Staff. "MAY TO BUY THALHIMERS FOR $325 MILLION". dailypress.com. Retrieved 2019-04-17.

[14] Potts, Mark (13 November 1991). "15 THALHIMERS TO BE TURNED INTO HECHT STORES". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on 17 April 2019. Retrieved 16 April 2019.

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