In February 1982, a Downtown Cleveland landmark began its last dance.
Halle Brothers Co. was liquidating, a sad end to one of the most prominent retailers in Cleveland. Brothers Samuel and Salmon Halle opened a hat and fur store on Superior Street in 1891. From there, it grew into a department store and moved east. In 1910, Halle’s moved into a new terra-cotta building at Euclid Avenue and East 12th Street.
The store prospered. Its delivery trucks could be seen on suburban streets, and Mr. Jingeling became a Christmas staple for children of the baby boom. It even ran its own shuttle from Public Square — where its rivals May Co. and Higbee’s were located.
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As malls opened in the 1960s, Downtown retail started to decline — including at
Halle’s. In 1970, the company was bought by Chicago-based Marshall Field’s. Soon, there were no members of the Halle family working at Halle’s, and although it opened a new branch in Sandusky in 1979, its fortunes continued to decline.
In November 1981, the store sold to Associated Investors Corp., a holding company owned by Columbus store magnate Jerome Schottenstein. “Halle’s will remain a viable, quality name,” he told The Plain Dealer. By January, he’d changed his tune, announcing that the chain’s stores would close.
To the customers who came to the closeout sale, it showed how far the store had fallen. “This isn’t my Halle’s. The quality is gone,” said David Smotzer of Brooklyn. Sherry Zierke of Westlake said, “They’ve taken all the good stuff, especially the furniture, and moved in junk.” John Hemsath likened it to a wake, “looking for the coffin and find that you’re in it.”
The store is gone — it wouldn’t be long before May Co. and Higbee’s joined it in the department store graveyard — but the building has been repurposed. It’s retail and
apartments now.
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