Kmart R.I.P.

I'm unfamiliar with Grants, but I guess my version of it would be TG&Y. Outside of Kmart and Walmart, I was always in awe of the toy section at TG&Y.

https://i.imgur.com/Utm3be9.jpg

And another store I just remembered because people were talking about bicycles is Otasco.

https://i.imgur.com/aqAZekt.jpg

That archive.org collection is phenomenal!

K-Mart was the only place I ever saw a real layaway setup where they take your stuff and put it on a shelf instead of assuming you'll use a credit card and pay 28% interest.

The layaway department at the Kmart I worked at was a real eye opener and hit you in the feels come Christmas. Parents bringing in toys for kids around Black Friday and then coming in every week or two until Christmas to make payments - just an obvious example of people living paycheck to paycheck. My recollection is layaway involved interest like a credit card or at least some fees.

This reminds me. The other thing about our Kmart is that when we moved there, it had an in-store Little Caesars. I never ate there, but you'd see families sitting down and eating pizza.

My Kmart had a Little Caesars and I ate their square pizza lunch deal probably three times a week for a year plus. It was a fast food version of a Detroit-style pizza with the cheese baked into the square edge. Obviously junk but it got the job done and on occasion when fresh was pretty tasty.

I also remember the people who worked there, just like you'd remember the cashiers at your local grocery store. Mostly nice people, but very old people and a guy who had medium-functioning autism or something - a little slow. And the registers operated very slowly too.

It was a cross section of people that worked at our store. There was a core of older "lifers" for whom the job was their career. There were a lot of high school and college kids (like me) that worked there. Then there were a bunch of people who worked part time as a second job, mainly it seemed because it was open nights and offered flexible hours.

I worked in the electronics department and we had an internal register to operate. The things I remember most about the job were (1) working the register sucked; (2) the film lab - we would send out customers' film to be developed and the developer would lose orders on occasion, which would result in the customer yelling at you for losing their vacation photos; and (3) when I first started they still had a commission program for selling bigger ticket items like TVs, but the real commission was if you could sell an extended warranty with the TV. I sold a couple fairly early on (completely at random) and everyone was like, "who is this whiz kid", then they discontinued the program shortly afterward and the long timers were up in arms.

Sorry to go on about this.

none necessary. i could read stories like this forever.

Same!

me too. this thread has made me nostalgic for when there were stores you would go to to get things, and people worked there. with flashback images of the little carbon copy credit card machines.

Dude you know those Blue Lights if not already so, have to be pretty kitschy things to have and worth a few bucks. I'd imagine so if you got one from an earlier era like a working 'fine' 1971 genuine K-Mart blue light cart.

― earlnash, Tuesday, April 26, 2022 9:56 PM

I was thinking about this earlier. I hope the Smithsonian acquired one, at least.

Is the Astor Square NYC Kmart luxury condos now or something? A craft cocktail speakeasy with a discount store theme?

Oh man, I love those archive.org tapes. Listened to hours of that stuff several years ago while doing work stuff. Nice warm nostalgia blanket for anyone of a certain age.

Also, ^ those Caldor and Ames pics above. Probably frequented those more often than K-Mart growing up, just because they were closer.

I remember being perplexed by Caldor as a small child because I registered it as being called "Cow Door".

I remember wondering what the heck "Wal-Mart" was when I first saw Christmas Vacation, a few years before they completely consumed our area.

Re: Blue Light Specials, when they needed the blue light cart brought somewhere, they would announce over the PA, “Code Blue to Hosiery, Code Blue to Hosiery” or whatever.

Code Red was “shoplifter” and every able bodied male employee under maybe 40 was supposed to come running to the front or wherever they announced the Code Rode to chase down the shoplifter. And we actually did this! I was never that into it because I’m not getting punched for $5.25/hr even then, but some of the employees really got into it and would chase supposed perps across 4-6 lanes of traffic and hold them down until the police came.

Rode = Red obv

lol I got busted stealing an Aerosmith tape from Kmart when I was 14. I wonder if they called a Code Red on me.

Which tape?

Done With Mirrors (it was a $2.99 cut out).

Lol!

Did you order the Code Red (on Johnny Fever)?!!!

Haha, that's uhhh, definitely another era RE: shoplifters. When I worked retail as a teen in the early 00's, every place very much pressed on us "DO NOT CHASE SHOPLIFTERS". I was like "Uh, yeah, I don't think you have to worry about me doing that"

Guess having an employee get hit by a car or beat up in the line of duty has proven to be costly in the years between.

xp's

I am lol'ing at a certain kind of young male K-Mart employee being all "Fuck yeah, it's on!" when they hear a Code Red.

"i live for this"

This thread just keeps getting better. Excellent work all around.

But of course right now MVP=PBKR

A girlfriend of mine in high school got pinched stealing hair dye from the local KMart, iirc she was not chased but I was waiting outside, unaware what she was doing, and she came out with some security guy and said she was detained and we couldn't go to the movies or whatever else we were doing. I think she might have been banned from the place after that but no charges or anything.

Guess having an employee get hit by a car or beat up in the line of duty has proven to be costly in the years between.

Or chasing and tackling the wrong guy. In my late 90s/early 00s experience, we were definitely told not to chase them. I think I remember one of my coworkers getting written up or something for doing so.

I used to work at Tower Records on lower Broadway in Manhattan. We had a pretty sophisticated surveillance system for the time (it was the early 90s) and a dedicated security staff. Those guys, who mostly looked like bouncers, were busy all day long, intercepting people on their way out, some absolutely loaded down with CDs.

the decline of retail has deprived so many young people of these formative experiences

Done With Mirrors (it was a $2.99 cut out).

High risk/low reward

Astor Place replacement:
https://www.wegmans.com/news-media/press-releases/wegmans-announces-plan-to-open-manhattan-store-in-2023/

I don't remember a KMart being at Astor Place.

The bookstore that used to be there is a Starbucks, or was the last time I was there.

The Barnes and Noble?

https://gothamist.com/food/wegmans-open-former-astor-place-kmart-location

No, I want to say it was just called Astor Place Books. This would have been 1991 or so.

You don’t mean St. Mark’s Bookstore, do you, which was nearby?

Anything is possible, but I could swear it was called Astor Place Books. I remember it being right by the subway stop. Maybe it became Barnes & Noble?

When I was growing up Kmart was the main place I knew of to get an Icee. I assumed then that the Icee was a knock-off of 7-11's Slurpee, but it turns out the Icee came first and the Slurpee was just the Icee renamed, after 7-11 licensed the product.

Nowadays Icees are sold in numerous chains.

I went to K-Mart, specifically the Lake Mary one, for years. bought Offspring's Smash there, lmao.

Another personal Kmart memory was the lunchroom. When I started working there full time M-F after college I would take naps on a couch in the lunch room with my jean jacket partially covering my head while the older female employees watched soap operas. Over the course of several months in and out of naps I secretly got into the soap opera that was on during my lunch (I think it was Guiding Light, but not sure now), knowing all the characters and plot lines.

Kmart lunchroom was also where I was when the OJ verdict was read, along with every employee that wasn’t working a register.

Kmart was a huge deal for me when I was a kid - we had a Pamida but when the big mall opened in 1982 I suddenly had much better access to GI Joe and Star Wars action figures and model airplanes and toy guns and the Atari 2600 demo station where you could play any game for 30 seconds at a time. I'd take desirable action figures and hide them in like the automotive department until I got my allowance.

I randomly bought a copy of Transworld Skateboarding there in August of 1986 which might be the most world-altering single instances in my life.

There was a bomb threat during a nice fall day at my high school so we got dismissed at like 10am and a bunch of us went to the thrift store and bought wigs and wore them to eat at the KMart cafeteria where we were younger than everyone else by at least 40 years.

I remember that a lot of people called it "Kmart's", like it belonged to the KMart family (I still hear this in Michigan with "Meijer's", but there actually is a Meijer family). There was an old guy once trying to write a check and asking if there was an apostrophe or not.

A sketchy dude in high school would take orders for things to shoplift; I got a copy of LZ's "Houses of the Holy" this way but he got busted before he could steal me a Gameboy.

Icees were also found in Sears stores in the 80s.

Pic 'n Save was better than K-Mart, however ours closed in 1990 and that building has remained vacant since then.

7-11 sold Icees at some point, maybe before they went over to the Slurpee.

Xp to joygoat. Amazing memories.

I remember that Atari 2600 demo station, except I think I encountered it at Sears.

I remember when Jaclyn Smith launched her line of clothing at Kmart. Was kind of a big deal.

Having ignored Kmart for many years I missed the fact that Sofía Vergara, Nicki Minaj, and Selena Gomez have also had clothing lines at Kmart.

Cheryl Tiegs was . . . Sears?

Maybe. But I same to remember Stefanie Powers for some reason.

Cheryl Tiegs AND Stephanie Powers.

https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/165421262675

When I worked retail as a teen in the early 00's, every place very much pressed on us "DO NOT CHASE SHOPLIFTERS"

Can't believe I did it, but I chased one three or four blocks out of the downtown Toronto record store I worked in 35 years ago. He stupidly circled back (not knowing I was still following and watching) and walked right past the store--just like they say about serial killers returning to the murder scene in Mindhunter--and got nabbed. He'd probably lifted a couple of cassettes.

The Icee and the Slurpee are exactly the same product. I've only learned this now thanks to this thread. And yes, apparently 7-11 simply sold it as Icee until Icee made them change the name.

I remember when Jaclyn Smith launched her line of clothing at Kmart. Was kind of a big deal.

Having ignored Kmart for many years I missed the fact that Sofía Vergara, Nicki Minaj, and Selena Gomez have also had clothing lines at Kmart.

― Josefa, Wednesday, April 27, 2022 1:57 PM (fifty-one minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I will always remember Kmart for its Adam Levine line.

https://live.staticflickr.com/3825/13372783143_61ebf12109_b.jpg

My Kmart had a little dinner in it, like a real 50's bar style thing. Right in the middle of the Kmart. Like Woolworth's, complet4e with parakeet sounds.

https://imgur.com/a/BtIG1Hm

https://imgur.com/a/BtIG1Hm

https://imgur.com/a/BtIG1Hm

ugh why do my links to imguer never work - its becuase akmart is closed forever

https://i.imgur.com/ygiUAGF.png

(Psst, you need to click on the img itself, the Open Image In New Tab, the go to that tab, copy that url and put inside the img tags)

(Or just Copy Image Address even)

As I mentioned to my dad the other day - I’m a citizen of the 20th century at heart and as such this thread is magical.

OTM. At the risk of spamming, this thread is reminding me of a trip outside of In every 70s US home ever