Riches' Was The Store Of The South

 

Whenever the Christmas Holidays approach, I can’t help but think of Rich’s Department Store. If you’re from the South, specifically from anywhere near Atlanta and are above the age of 40, Rich’s will be a familiar name. When I was growing up there was no other store like it and and Rich’s was the place to shop in Atlanta. The problem is that I didn’t appreciate it then. Time has a way of changing things and this is especially true of the perceptions I had as a child because I never gave Rich’s the credit I give to it today for being a truly unique shopping experience. My mother made sure I had many opportunities to try though, at both the Downtown Rich’s and Rich’s at Lenox Square. 
Memories of going with her to the Magnolia Room for example. I remember a coconut cake served there that could easily give my grandmother’s a run for its money. I remember both my parents taking me to the downtown store to ride the Pink Pig at Christmas. I even remember some of the people that always seemed to be the ones to wait on my mother when she shopped. Mrs. Lyons in the shoe department at the Lenox store was one such example. She had at least two pins affixed to her name badge shaped like a golden peach that I think signified that she had been a loyal Rich’s employee since Rich’s was called a dry goods store.
I don’t have anything against Macy’s and I do go there from time to time but I suppose I never forgave them for retiring the Rich’s name in favor of their own. Once Rich’s was gone, it just wasn’t the same anymore. Macy’s in New York, where we took our son a couple of years ago to see Santa Claus comes fairly close but in Atlanta, Rich’s was as much a part of the Atlanta landscape as the statue of the Phoenix that used to be in downtown…and come to think of it, Rich’s bought that statue, known as “Atlanta from the Ashes”, which is considered the symbol of Atlanta.
People went to work for Rich’s and stayed there until they retired. Like Mrs. Lyons, it wasn’t unusual to see a salesman or saleslady with a quarter of a century or longer working for the company. Customers sought out “their” sales associate and those associates not only knew their customers but would call them when items came in that they thought their customers would like. Mrs. Lyons was a frequent caller it seemed when shoes in my mother’s hard-to-find size came in. Rich’s during those years defined exemplary customer service, something that is sorely missing in many of today’s shopping emporiums.
It’s funny the little details that I can remember even today about the Lenox Square store of that time. The solid brass door pulls as you entered the store were fluted with an acorn-like attachment on the top and bottom, conveying longevity and solidity. The children’s play area, where parents could actually leave their children for up to two hours while they shopped and not worry that something would happen to them. The beautiful wood and glass display counters, filled with all kinds of watches that fascinated me. So much has changed and so little is left there to remind me of it.
I also remember off-the-wall things like the odd looking white plastic charge cards that Rich’s used with the “R” logo printed on it, like the one in the picture. My mother would take hers out and they would put it into this pressing machine and push down on it to make an impression of the card on the receipt. Her cards always had traces of blue from either ink or carbon paper (not sure which) that got on the card from use over the years.
My brother and I used to enjoy riding the escalators at Lenox up and down and we would go from the ground floor all the way up to the top and back down again. Sometimes, in the waning hours of the day when the store was about to close, we would try to run up them in the wrong direction. I remember almost making it to the top once when someone got on and we had to reluctantly ride backwards to the bottom again.
Rich’s always decorated to the hilt for the holidays, transforming the store into a glittering display of greenery, lights and packages wrapped like presents. Parents from all over brought their kids to ride the Pink Pig on the top floor and you could waste an entire day seeing it all.
The downtown store was even more fun than Lenox because Mom would take the elevators from one floor to the next. People would get on and off while we rode and we would try to guess what was in the shopping bags that the passengers carried with them. At Christmas, there was all the hustle and bustle of the season wrapped in a downtown store that carried anything you might hope to find under the tree on Christmas morning. I remember seeing Santa Claus a time or two and marveling at all the cool stuff in the toy department. It was always a happy, if tiring day visiting Rich’s in either location and I still have my Rich’s Santa Claus, complete with his Coke bottle in hand, to remind me of those days. Some traditions outlive the institutions from which they came.
The Rich’s Great Tree is a good example of that. It was a sight to see, perched on top of the bridge between the main store and the store that sold furniture. I never got to actually go to a tree lighting but I don’t think I ever missed seeing the ceremony on TV, nor actually getting to see the tree itself at some point during the Christmas season. It was a symbol of Atlanta and of the holiday season for a number of generations and even though the tree has been moved to Lenox Macy’s, its roots are firmly planted in Rich’s history.
My Dad didn’t go with us much but when he did, the shopping trips always seemed to be a little quicker and more purposeful, no doubt due to his insistence that Mom not browse as much as she usually would. If we went downtown to shop, we usually went somewhere close by to eat like Ichiban’s Japanese Steakhouse or to the Polaris at the Hyatt Regency. Rich’s was always a part of that experience too.
One of the fun things that he did was to see how fast he could drive down the spiral parking garage. The exit to the downtown parking garage at Rich’s had this amazing corkscrew exit ramp that you got on and circled around and around until you got to the bottom. Dad would always drive too fast coming down and my brother and I would be pinned by lateral G-forces to the right side of the backseat as he went around and around. In hindsight, I can’t be sure if he drove in such haste because my brother and I enjoyed it so much or if he was just in that big of a hurry to get out of department store. Either way, we enjoyed it and we looked forward to that part of the experience as well.
Businesses come and go but some gain such longevity that they become an institution, weaving their history into the fabric of the community that they serve. Like the small stores in my own hometown, the large ones like Rich’s became a part of the Atlanta region and flourished for well over a hundred years, investing in the city as the shoppers invested in the store. Relationships between customers and those that saw to their needs are the stuff of legends in today’s era of self-service and you have to know where to go to find that level of customer appreciation. Back then, you knew to just go to Rich’s.
Today Rich’s lives only in memories and old photographs, a relic of a bygone era when the customer was always right and a business stood behind what it sold. Many of the buildings that once bore the name still carry on but under the names of other stores that are a shadow of what Rich’s was to Atlanta and to the people who frequented it. Still, when the Christmas season is nearly upon us, I can remember all of those things that made it such a neat place to go and wish that I could go back to Rich’s one more time. It was a special place. It was the Store of the South.

The Margaret Mitchell House

The Margaret Mitchell House is a historic house museum located in Atlanta, Georgia. The structure was the home of author Margaret Mitchell. Located in Midtown, at 990 Peachtree Street, the house was known as the Crescent Apartments when Mitchell and her husband lived in Apt. 1 on the ground floor from 1925 to 1932. While living there, Mitchell wrote the bulk of her Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, Gone with the Wind. The house also contains a Visitor Center, and a portion of the museum is wholly devoted to the filming of the 1939 film based on the book.

The house is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is also designated as a historic building by the City of Atlanta.

House History

The house was built as a single-family residence in 1899. Commercial development quickly overtook the neighborhood, however, and in 1907 the original family moved to Druid Hills. The house changed hands several times until the winter of 1913-1914 when the house was moved onto a new basement story constructed on the rear of the lot. Given a Crescent Avenue address, the building was remodeled in 1919 and converted into a ten-unit apartment building, known as the Crescent Apartments, and "three brick stores" were built where the house had originally sat. Located in what was then Atlanta's largest business district outside of downtown, close to trolley lines, and walking distance from her parents' house, the Crescent Apartments was home to Margaret Mitchell and John Marsh when they married in July 1925. Unfortunately, the building's owner became over-extended, and it was sold at auction in 1926. The next owner, too, was driven to bankruptcy when the stock market crashed in 1929. Maintenance declined, contributing to Mitchell's characterization of their apartment as "the Dump." By the fall of 1931, there were only two occupied apartments in the building, one of which belonged to the Marshes, but they, too, moved to a larger apartment a few blocks away in the spring of 1932.

With a new owner, the Crescent Apartments were revived and continued to attract tenants until shortly after World War II. By then, the building was in poor condition, and in 1946 the porches were removed from the Crescent Avenue side of the building. (The original front porches were lost when the building was moved in 1913). By the 1950s, the building was mostly vacant and overdue for rehabilitation. There were a few commercial tenants, and the old apartments were popular with Georgia Tech students. In 1964, the opening nearby of Ansley Mall signaled the death knell for the old commercial district on Peachtree Street between 8th and 14th, but at the same time the Crescent Apartments got a much-needed rehab and were reborn as the Windsor House Apartments. In 1977, the last tenants were evicted and the building boarded up by a new owner who intended a major redevelopment of the area. By the time he and his company went bankrupt in the late 1980's, their only accomplishment was construction of a new office building at Tenth and W. Peachtree and the razing of dozens of historic buildings in the area. The old Crescent Apartments continued to deteriorate, especially after a fire was set in the southwest corner of the building did minor damage in the late 1980's. However, another fire, presumed to be arson, destroyed much of the building in September 1994.

Rear of the Margaret Mitchell House

 

The house is included on the National Register of Historic Places.

Source: wikipedia.com

M.R. Rich & Brothers Co. (Rich's Department Store)

Rich's Department Store was founded in Atlanta, Georgia in 1867 by Morris Rich, a Hungarian-born immigrant. The business expanded over several decades, and eventually was located on the corner of Alabama and Broad Streets in downtown Atlanta. In the 1960's and 1970's the store opened in several other locations. In 1948 a seventy-foot live Christmas tree was first placed on the roof of Rich's downtown department store. Thereafter, the Lighting of the Great Tree became an Atlanta tradition. In 1960, several African American college students protested segregationist policies practiced by Rich's until the store agreed to desegregate its stores in 1961. Rich's department store was phased out in 2005.



Rich's was a department store retail chain, headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, that operated in the southern U.S. from 1867 until March 6, 2005 when the nameplate was eliminated and replaced by Macy's. Many of the former Rich's stores today form the core of Macy's Central, an Atlanta-based division of Macy's, Inc., which formerly operated as Federated Department Stores, Inc.


(1950's-1970's logo)

History

Beginnings

It began in Atlanta as M. Rich Dry Goods general store in 1867. The store was at 36 Whitehall Street, and was run by Morris Rich. It was renamed M. Rich & Co. in 1871, when his brother Emanuel joined him; it was again renamed M. Rich & Bros. in 1876 when the third brother Daniel joined. In 1872 it moved across the street to the corner with Hunter Street (now MLK Street), and in 1881 to 54 and 56 Whitehall Street, later adding 52 in 1906. In 1901 it became a true department store by dividing merchandise into separated sections, and was incorporated as M. Rich & Bros. Co. It became simply Rich's in 1924. Two innovative ideas that Rich tried were the barter system and a credit system.


Rich's 1906 building at 52-54-56 Whitehall, now 82 Peachtree St. SE, as seen in 2013

Daniel's son Walter succeeded his uncle Morris as Rich's president from 1926 to 1947, and was succeeded by the grandson of Morris Rich Richard H. Rich. Under the leadership of Richard Rich, affectionately known as Dick Rich, Rich's began expansion in the 1950's. Rich's had moved outside the Atlanta area for its first new store in 1955 when a store in Knoxville Tennessee was opened. Rich's opened its first suburban store at Lenox Square in 1959, Georgia's first shopping mall. The open-air mall shared space with the other major Atlanta department store, Davison's. That same year Rich's also opened a store at Belvedere Plaza Shopping Center, a large two-level strip mall in Belvedere Park near Decatur and more recently famous for its "wigs and beepers" store. Rich's sold off its Knoxville store to Miller's, as it re-focused on its Georgia stores.


East side of 1924 store, from northeast looking southwest

Holiday Traditions

Two holiday traditions associated with Rich's were the Great Tree and the Pink Pig. Starting in 1947, the Great Tree, conceptualized by executive Frank Pallotta, was a massive pine, set on top of the multi-level glass skybridge connecting the main downtown Atlanta store with the Store For Homes across Forsyth Street. After the closure of the downtown store in 1991, the Great Tree, and the annual Thanksgiving evening tree-lighting festivities, moved to nearby Underground Atlanta. After several years of poor attendance, the Tree was moved to the top of the Men's Store at the Lenox Square location. This placed the tree on the corner of the mall closest to the prominent intersection of Peachtree and Lenox Roads. The tree lighting ceremony traditionally features country and pop music performers from Georgia, such as Kenny Rogers, several choirs from local churches, and a rendition of "O Holy Night" with the tree being lit by a child during the high note of the line "O night divine."

 
Closeup of northeast corner of 1924 store, from northeast looking southwest

The Pink Pig was a child-scaled monorail that originally circled the toy department in the downtown Store for Homes. After several years, it was moved to the roof of the Store For Homes building. The front car of the train had a pig's face, and the last car had a curly tail. The original train featured Priscilla Pig, while a second train added to the track was named Percival. For many years after the closure of the downtown store, the Pink Pig was set up at the Festival of Trees at the Georgia World Congress Center. During the Rich's-Macy's era, in an effort to show respect for the traditions of Rich's, a redesigned Pink Pig, this time a child-sized train rather than a monorail, was set up on the top level of a parking deck at Lenox Square mall under an enormous pink tent. The train ride takes children (and adults, who can now fit) through a storybook tale of Priscilla Pig. The original Pink Pig monorail cars are now at the Atlanta History Center where they are occasionally displayed.

The Wren's House, Atlanta, GA, Menu cover of Riche's Restaurant


Dear Store

In 1967, Atlanta Constitution columnist Celestine Sibley wrote Dear Store: An Affectionate Portrait of Rich's. In it, she mentioned notable acts by Rich's staff and management, including the cashing of scrip payments made by the City of Atlanta to its schoolteachers during a financial crisis, accepting returns of worn nylons during World War II shortages, and the efforts of their personal shopper service, "Penelope Penn," to find the perfect gift for thousands of customers who wrote to them. The title of the book comes from a letter in which a child offers to trade his younger sister for a toy that he wants.

 Copy of the Children's Menu at The Rich's Department Store in Atlanta, GA

The book also relates the story of Coretta Scott King, who chose to shop at Rich's for a coat when her husband, Martin Luther King, Jr. was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. The salesperson advised Mrs. King not to buy a fur, because it would compare unfavorably to the extravagant furs worn by the Scandinavian attendees, instead selecting a conservative cloth coat for the occasion.

Expansion

Rich's most aggressive expansion was during the 1960's and 1970's. Four more stores opened in the Atlanta area in the 1960's, two of those enormous three story full line stores. While this expansion resulted in continued success of the chain, it chipped away at the business of the downtown store. By this time, Rich's was the leading regional department store in the country, though it remained largely unknown by the general public outside of Georgia. This would soon change, however.

North escalator, 5th floor furniture department in 1924 store


Rich's Downtown Flagship Store. Part of Sam Nunn Federal Center.

Throughout the 1970's, four more Rich's locations opened in Georgia including one in Augusta, the first in the state outside of Atlanta. Rich's also began an aggressive expansion with stores in Alabama and South Carolina. Also, there were plans much later in the early 1990's to expand Rich's into Charlotte, but these were scrapped. Of all the stores out of state, stores opened in Greenville, Columbia and Birmingham with two (adding a third in 1986) in Birmingham, creating stiffer competition in the city against regional chains Pizitz, Loveman's and Parisian. This expansion also strained the company financially, and the sudden death of Richard Rich in 1975 threw the company into turmoil. It was rumored that the surviving descendants were incapable of running the company, and the store was ultimately sold out to Federated Department Stores (now known as Macy's, Inc.).


Crystal Bridge over Forsyth Street from 1924 building to 1946/1948 Home Store building, from north looking south

Federated

The sale to Federated ended over 100 years of ownership by the Rich family. Aside from the Great Tree, most of the traditions of Rich's and the departments (including the bakery) were all stripped away by the early 1990's. Loyalty to the chain, however, remained very strong even after the downtown flagship store was closed in 1991.


South side of 1946-1948 store for homes and 1958 service building, from southeast looking northwest

In 1994, the parent company of Rich's bought out Macy's, which was historically Atlanta's rival chain under the Davison's banner. The following year, Rich's was merged with Lazarus in the midwest and Goldsmith's in Memphis. Through the merged division, the chain grew in a corporate sense as it was operated out of Atlanta, but the Lazarus and Goldsmith's stores continued to operate under their regional names. The merger with Goldsmith's occurred in 1988 and Lazarus in 1995. Lazarus was one of Federated's founding store chains.

Parking deck

Closures of Davison's/Macy's stores

When Rich's and Macy's both were owned by the same company, this resulted in the overlapping of the two chains all selling the same products. Initially, both stores remained open with Macy's losing its higher-end merchandise and becoming distinctly downmarket when compared with Rich's. The decision was made in 2003 to close all of the former Davison's/Macy's stores in Atlanta (no new Macy's stores had been built in Atlanta since Town Center at Cobb in 1986) and co-brand Rich's as Rich's-Macy's. The only original Macy's/Davison's store to remain open is Northlake Mall - originally the downtown Atlanta store was to remain open, but a sudden change of direction by Macy's corporate closed the last major retailer in downtown Atlanta. The cobranded name change was intended to slowly phase out the chain instead of a sudden change so as to reduce the backlash over the elimination of an Atlanta institution that was one of the institutions that defined the city, similar to Marshall Field's in Chicago. As Macy's was a well-known part of the Atlanta retail landscape since its purchase of Davison's in the 1920's, loyal Rich's customers who defected to other stores were replaced by longtime Macy's/Davison's customers.


Rich's-Macy's logo, 2003-2005

The same year that Rich's and Macy's merged, the downtown Macy's (Davison's flagship store) was closed down. Also in the merger, the Lenox Square and Perimeter Mall Macy's (also former Davison's) became Bloomingdale's with the rest closed except for the Town Center Mall store, whose middle floor is now used as a Macy's Furniture store and also the upper floor is now used as a Macy's Furniture Clearance Center and the lower floor is now used as a Macy's Men's Store. The following year, when the Cobb Center Mall store closed, the furniture clearance center was also relocated there.

Rich's at Lenox Square 2007. Converted to Macy's.

In 1995, the downtown Atlanta Rich's store became part of the Sam Nunn Federal Building. The Store For Homes, the "Crystal Bridge," and a parking deck were torn down and replaced by a high-rise, a small building containing a McDonald's and other retail space, and a more substantial connector between the high-rise and the original 1924 Rich's building. The top floor of the 1924 building, a later addition of concrete and glass block not in the style of the original, was removed. An addition in the style of the original was built on the corner of Forsyth and Old Alabama Streets, which had been a park and previously the location of the offices of the The Atlanta Journal before its merger with The Atlanta Constitution.

Rich's at North DeKalb Mall 2007. Converted to Macy's.

Name Changes

 
Water tower on top of Atlanta Store

After 138 years, Rich's (as Rich's-Macy's) disappeared on March 6, 2005 along with the other historical nameplates "Goldsmith-Macy's", and "Lazarus-Macy's" were eliminated, with the stores renamed as the Macy's Central division of Federated. Macy's Central is the current division encompassing the former Rich's stores. A signature event of the store, Rich's Great Tree, continues as an annual Thanksgiving event in Atlanta at the Lenox location. The "Crystal Bridge" connecting the two halves of flagship downtown Atlanta store it earlier took place on was destroyed as part of converting the site to the Sam Nunn Federal Building complex. The tradition ironically continues as simply the "Great Tree", ignoring the name of the store that made the tradition famous. All former Rich's today continue to operate under the Macy's banner. Its Richway discount store chain, founded in 1968, was sold in 1988 to what is now Target Stores.


Rich's building at Cobb Center Mall. Now houses Imagine International Academy of Smyrna, a public charter school serving Cobb County.



Rich's Knoxville, Tennessee location. Now the University of Tennessee Conference Center.


Historical picture of Rich's in Downtown Knoxville in 1955.


Morris, Walter, Daniel and Dick Rich are all buried at Oakland Cemetery in Atlanta.


Morris Rich

Birth: Jan. 13, 1847

Death: Jun. 29, 1928



Businessman: Along with his brother Emanuel, founded Rich's Department Stores, which was one of the largest retail chains in the South.

Spouse:

Maud Goldberg Rich

Birth: Oct. 22, 1857

Death: Apr. 18, 1947

Wife of Co-Founder of Rich's Department Stores - very well known in Atlanta, Ga and in the South.

Born in Madison, Ga. Married to and shares marker with Morris Rich.

Note: Had daughters Rosalind b. 9/1880 in Ga., Valeria b. 3/1885 in Ga.

Businessman: With his brother Morris, he co-founded Rich's Department Stores, one of the largest retail chains in the South.

Suicide of Emanuel Rich

Emanuel Rich, a member of the firm of M.R. Rich Brothers, one of the largest dry goods and furniture house in the South, committed suicide at his home in this city at 7 o'clock this morning by cutting his throat with a fruit knife. (April 18, 1947)

Mr. Rich was well known in business circles through ou the South and in New York where he spent much time as buyer for his house. He ranked as one of Atlanta's most prominent and wealthy Hebrew citizens.

Investigation revealed the fact that Mr. Rich had stabbed himself thirty-six times in the breast and throat before death ensued. One of these blows penetrated his heart, and the other punctured his jugular vein.

The dead merchant was a native of Hungary, and forty-nine years old. He was an equal partner with his two brothers in the firm of M.R. Rich & Brothers. As the house enjoys excellent financial standings, no cause is known for the suicide, except nervous dyspepsia, from which the victum was a great sufferer.

Emanuel Rich

Birth: Mar. 15, 1849

Death: Jul. 16, 1897

Spouse:

Bertha Sarturius Rich (1859 - 1923)

Birth: Jul. 1, 1859

Death: Mar. 14, 1923

Businessman. With his brother Morris, he co-founded Rich's Department Stores, one of the largest retail chains in the South. 

Married to and shares marker with Emanuel Rich. Had son Walter, b. 1880.

Children:		Rubye Rich Strauss (1882 - 1955)* *Calculated relationship
Burial: Oakland Cemetery Atlanta Fulton County Georgia, USA Plot: Jewish Section (1878 Addition) GPS (lat/lon): 33.44827, -84.22248
Maintained by: Find A Grave Record added: Jun 03, 2000 Find A Grave Memorial# 9662

Burial in Oakland Cemetary ~ Atlanta, Georgia

Links:

M. Rich Dry Goods Founder

Rich's Memoirs

Morris Rich's Grave

Maud Goldberg Rich's Grave

Emanuel Rich's Grave

Bertha Sartutius Rich's Grave

All Rich's Buried In Oakland Cemetary

Atlanta's History Timeline

Rich's Christmas postcard (Christmas Card)

M. Rich And Company And Building

Source: Internet