Boston basement shoppers, we feel your pain.COLUMN: IN OUR OPINION; EDITORIAL FOOTNOTE The closing of the flagship Filene's Basement Filene's Basement, also called The Basement, is a Massachusetts-based chain of department stores owned by Retail Ventures, Inc. The oldest off-price retailer in the United States, The Basement in Boston's Downtown Crossing Downtown Crossing is a shopping district in Boston, Massachusetts, located due south of the Boston Common and west of the Financial District. It features large department stores as well as restaurants, music stores, souvenir sellers, general retail establishments, and many street was much in the news over the weekend. Even Mayor Thomas M. Menino showed up for a photo op, and picked up a couple of suits in the bargain. The basement store was opened in 1908 by Edward Filene Edward Albert Filene (b. September 3, 1860, Salem, Massachusetts - d. September 26, 1937, Paris, France) was an American businessman, social entrepreneur and philanthropist. to sell off excess merchandise from his father's department store above. The current owner, an Ohio-based retail firm, says it will reopen, after renovations, in 2009. Many Bostonians may be unaware that Filene's Basement was a fixture of the Worcester shopping scene for many decades. The basement store here opened in 1928 at 545 Main St. and featured the same step-down discount pricing that had made the Boston basement store a shopper's Mecca. The Worcester basement store, which closed seven years ago, did well through most of its seven decades in this city. In retrospect, though, the beginning of the end may have come as early as 1971, when it moved to the new Worcester Center mall. Still, the store continued to attract a loyal following, even though it dropped the quirky quirk n. 1. A peculiarity of behavior; an idiosyncrasy: "Every man had his own quirks and twists" Harriet Beecher Stowe. 2. discounting formula, closed at one point for renovations, underwent ownership changes and, toward the end, increasingly brought in low-grade merchandise to supplement the surplus Filene's goods that once was, literally, the basement's stock in trade. Changes in retailing patterns - corporate consolidations, the ascendancy as·cen·dan·cy also as·cen·den·cy n. Superiority or decisive advantage; domination: "Germany only awaits trade revival to gain an immense mercantile ascendancy" Winston S. Churchill. of big-box discounting and so on - would help to seal the fate of Filene's Basement in Worcester, which matched the downward trajectory Trajectory The curve described by a body moving through space, as of a meteor through the atmosphere, a planet around the Sun, a projectile fired from a gun, or a rocket in flight. of the once-thriving downtown mall The Downtown Mall in Charlottesville, Virginia is one of the longest pedestrian malls in the United States. Located on Main Street, it runs between 2nd and 5th Streets. It is laid entirely with brick and home to an array of restaurants, shops, offices and art galleries. it anchored. In 1999, the store's parent company filed for bankruptcy protection and announced it would close 18 of its stores, including the Worcester basement store, after the Christmas shopping season. It's probably little consolation for basement-deprived shoppers in Boston, but we in Worcester feel your pain. |
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