A woman who now lives in NY emailed this to me for posting:
I just wanted to tell you what I remembered about Grants. I was pretty small. It was south of Woolworths and had no air conditioning in the summer. I remember it mostly from the early 60's. I remember creaky wood floors and giant fans trying to cool you off in the summer. My grandmother had been going in there since the 30's, I guess, so she was the one who usually took us in there. My mother did, too. But she usually liked Woolworths. Woolworths was "air cooled".
Woolworths had a snack counter on the right side as you walked in, and a full Restaurant along the entire left wall. That was the smell that hit you when you walked in the door. Bacon in the morning and burgers and hot dogs at lunch time. Terrazzo floors, not wood and a basement that held housewares. As you walked into the store there were three counters that enclosed your salesperson or people. From the left, it was the candy counter with its big silver scoops, that could dig into chocolate kisses, gumdrops, Brachs chocolate covered raisins or many other selections to be weighed for your pleasure. The middle counter was for cosmetics. And the counter to the right was for jewelry. As you delved deeper into the store you would discover drugstore items, sewing needs, and against the right wall, a record department. towards the back were a pet department, the stairway to the household items, and all the other departments. At the very back of the store was the garden department leading to a back entrance.
When I was a teenager I worked there, and discovered all the "behind the scenes" passageways. Upstairs was a cavernous kitchen that cooked many a meal in its day. Down in the basement was a place for all the backstock, and little section for Dottie, the lovely, sweet lady who had been making the holiday specialty items for many, many years. Centerpieces and christmas ornaments, Thanksgiving horn of plentys, and spooky halloween things. I worked with several older ladies who had been there since their youth.
My favorite thing from my childhood, in the front of the store, was a precursor to video games, a seat with a steering wheel and a T.V. screen in front of you. You drove and in black and white, you went down a road thru traffic and eventually had to avoid some poor woman holding groceries who was crossing the street. My sister always carefully avoided her, but my first time, after begging my mother and grandmother to let me try it, (I was 4) I hit the lady and she went flying thru the air. My mother and grandmother told me the police would have to arrest me now, and unfortunately as we left the store a poor unsuspecting Hackensack police officer saw me screaming and hiding behind my grandmother's legs. He stopped and after explanations, shook my hand and told me to be more careful next time.
I wish some one would write a Hackensack book, about its history with photos, as other towns have. It has so much more importance than most other Bergen county towns, it was a shopping hub for not only Bergen, but also Rockland county. I lived on Johnson Ave. for two years when I was young, but Hackensack will always be with me. My Grandparents raised their children mostly in Ridgefield Park, right across the river and my parents lived in Hackensack when they were first married and were married there in the First Baptist Church. My older sister and I were born in Hackensack Hospital.
We spent many a weekend in a little amusement park called Kiddieland on the line of River Edge. We had ice cream at a beautiful old fashioned parlor called Pfeiffers. We saw Santa Claus at Packards and ate at the little luncheonette (behind the escalator) at Sears after a long morning of shopping. My sister got her first shoes at Kate Shoes. We shopped for books on the different levels of Womraths. My parents cashed in their Plaid stamps at the Plaid stamp store on lower Main street. We saw movies at the Fox and the Oritani. We picked out children's furniture and toys at the "Pride" store on upper main street. My father bought warm stuff at Prozys. My grandmother bought lingerie wrapped in tissue paper and boxed at Arnold Constables.
Unlike the malls now, we peered at window displays. and on cold nights we yearned for my parents to pause at a window display and decide to go into a warm store. You could walk along and see furniture, Elegantly-gowned mannequins, toys, and one of my favorites, two little dutch knick-knack people who whirled around and kissed each other. Window -shopping is just a term now, not a reality.
If anyone writes a book, please list it on your web site. Your web site is great and it's all we have.
