The Growth of G. Fox & Company, Hartford, CT from 1917 to the 1960s

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Video about how G. Fox & Co. department store rebuilt after the fire of 1917 and continued to expand from the 1930s to 1960.
#hartford #hartfordct #gfox #connecticut #historicbuilding
Check out my video about the early days of G. Fox, from 1847 to 1917:
• The Early History of G...
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Many images used in this video are from the collections of Connecticut Historical Society and from the Hartford History Center at the Hartford Public Library, including:
Flood of 1936: pumping water on Talcott Street, Hartford: hdl.handle.net/...
Storefronts, 92 Pratt Street, Hartford: hdl.handle.net/...
Goodwill Club: hdl.handle.net/...
G. Fox & Co. construction site, Hartford: hdl.handle.net/...
Hartford department stores, Main Street: hdl.handle.net/...
G. Fox & Co. Cafeteria, Hartford: hdl.handle.net/...
Exterior view of G. Fox Department Store, 956-986 Main Street, Hartford: hdl.handle.net/...
Photograph Album of G. Fox & Co. Fire: hdl.handle.net/...
G. Fox & Co. Building, Main Street, Hartford: emuseum.chs.org...
G. Fox Elevator Crew: emuseum.chs.org...
G. Fox & Co. Store After Fire: emuseum.chs.org...
G. Fox and Co. 1917 Fire, Main Street, Hartford: emuseum.chs.org...
Exterior Views of G. Fox and Co. Building, Main Street, Hartford: emuseum.chs.org...
Exterior Views of G. Fox & Co., Main Street, Hartford: emuseum.chs.org...
Aerial View of G. Fox & Co.: emuseum.chs.org...
G. Fox & Co. Building, Main Street, Hartford: emuseum.chs.org...
Exterior Views of G. Fox and Co. Building, Main Street, Hartford: emuseum.chs.org...
Beatrice Fox Auerbach Public Appearances: emuseum.chs.org...
Photograph Album of G. Fox and Co. Garage Addition: emuseum.chs.org...
Interior Views of G. Fox and Co., Hartford: emuseum.chs.org...
Photograph Album of Additions to G. Fox and Co. Department Store,
Hartford: emuseum.chs.org...
Photograph Album of G. Fox and Co. Building, Harford: emuseum.chs.org...
Photograph Album of New G. Fox & Co. Building After 1917 Fire: emuseum.chs.org...
Christmas display, G. Fox, Hartford, 1959: hdl.handle.net/...
Chase Going Woodhouse and Beatrice Fox Auerbach, 1956: hdl.handle.net/...
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17 сен 2024

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Комментарии : 58

@maureenreagan9544 2 месяца назад

I greatly miss G. Fox. It was an elegant, beautiful place in which to shop and eat. It always seemed a magical place, especially at Christmas time.

@thomasalton1220 11 дней назад

I still continue to have fond memories of G. Fox. Although I grew up in a town adjacent to Manchester, which had its Parkade shopping center and the stores on Main Street, G. Fox was the ultimate destination store. As a young kid, the eleventh floor toy land was always magical. When I was old enough to roam the store on my own (the stairs to the mezzanine being the place to reunite with my parents), I would almost always hit the ninth floor, which had a fine record department.

@helenmiller3255 Год назад

My family had close ties to Mrs. Auerbach, and my uncle worked in the marketing dept. for over 30 years until the store was sold. A few years ago, I posted my memories of shopping G. Fox as a child with my mother and grandmother on Facebook. It unleashed a few hundred responses from folks near and far with their own memories.

@junkandthangs Год назад

You should share this video with those same people

@shanedraney7667 2 месяца назад

I grew up in East Hartford and South Windsor in the 60's. My grandparents used to take us there to see Santa and get pics. They regularly shopped there as well. It was a beautiful store.

@sparkletclown Год назад

This was wonderful Dan. It brought back so many memories. I used to love riding up the escalators, up and up and up. I also remember the elevators with it's operator to run it. And of course the Christmas Village where so many children got to visit Santa!

@historywithdansterner263 Год назад

Thanks for watching! You must still have some Santas that were bought at G. Fox!

@DS-yo7op 2 месяца назад

Dan - So many great memories. I spent so much time in that Beautiful Downtown Hartford store shopping with my Mother, grandmother and friends when I was able to drive. I worked in the Enfield Square G. Fox during college - there are too few of these Grand Dames of retail remaining, Getting amazon boxes is just not the same as having a beautiful lunch in the Connecticut Room or at "Stop and Go" on the lower level mezzanine in the budget store. My Mom worked in the downtown store, and my grandmother always bought us candy on the first floor. Bought a lot of fun things on the mezzanine overlooking the main floor when I started having my own money also. I can't help but wish this G. Fox was still there - along with Sage Allen that had the best "hermit" cookies, and Luettgens Limited......Thanks for the warm moments watching this....

@historywithdansterner263 2 месяца назад

Thank you for sharing those memories!

@grantman1148 Год назад

Thanks for the history lesson and the memories. My friends and I would take the bus from Bishop's Corner to Downtown and would so often make it to the toy department on the 11th floor. (At least I think it was the 11th). What a great store and a great time in Hartford's history. Mrs. Auerbach was a great lady and did much for the area.

@bobkstanley8844 Год назад

Dan, I wish there was a RU-vid when I was a Hartford Police Officer in the 80’s. I only went inside there once when I was a cop. It was stunning. I also wish I knew more history if the city when I worked there. It would be a great idea if you were contracted to teach at the police academies in the future there. Names of streets and buildings do make a difference and makes the thankless job more rewarding knowing how it came to be. Thanks for your very informative and interesting videos!

@historywithdansterner263 Год назад

Thanks. I mention the former police HQs in one of my videos about Market Street. There's a lot of potential subjects I could cover related to the police department as well.

@bobkstanley8844 Год назад

Like Morgan st jail?

@historywithdansterner263 Год назад

@@bobkstanley8844 Yes, it started as an annex of the Brown School: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-OrBuoHX5K3s.html There was also a police HQ on the other side of Market Street: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-P1jccDjzIG0.html

@Tad-For-Global-Peace 2 месяца назад

Thanks for your service as a cop. Does anyone remember Newberry? Or Caldors? Bradley’s? Zayre’s? 90’s?

@mareerogers364 7 месяцев назад

Thank you for such incredible memories. I wish you'd cover the amazing history of The State Theatre (larger than Radio City) and the great movies palaces in the city of hartford and downtown. Movie theatre's were located on Albany Avenue and main street. The Star theatre, nicknamed "The Scratch House" was across from Barnard Brown school. The Hartford Times newspaper building has a great history as well.

@historywithdansterner263 7 месяцев назад

I want to cover the theaters very soon!

@philipcone357 Год назад

As usual, Dan, an outstanding history. I seem to recall a wooden wall inside Fox’s on the first floor that supposedly was from the first store.

@historywithdansterner263 Год назад

That sounds interesting, I wonder if there's a picture of that.

@use100ame Год назад

'Love these local and intimate histories brought to life with such wonder, awe and personal memories for so many. 🙂

@Trinitylover Год назад

Thank you so much! Such great memories. Even though we moved away from West Hartford when I was in seventh grade, my aunt was in Manchester and we always went to G. Fox! Some of my favorite books as a child came from the book department at Fox’s.

@christopherwebb7778 Год назад

That was great, I worked in that building, both at the Insurance Department and at the haunted house they ran in the early 90's (1990's), it's a lovely building.

@use100ame Год назад

I was just thinking about that haunted house. I remember going to that at least once!

@Tad-For-Global-Peace 2 месяца назад

That haunted house was big and fun! Too short lived

@goodun2974 3 месяца назад

My parents moved from the North end of Hartford to the suburbs south of the city when I was 5, but I had a spinster aunt who lived in Hartford, worked downtown (Morgan St court building) and often took me downtown for lunch and shopping at G Fox and Sage Allen. G Fox used to have a Myna bird mascot of sorts in the lobby that learned words easily, but some workmen in the building taught it profanity, and so the bird was removed from the store. I was always a good eater, and my wonderful aunt would let me order anything I wanted from the adult menu. I also remember JJ Newberry on Main and Asylum (they had a lunch counter and a small but well-stocked record store in the 70's), and I think there was a Woolworths' and perhaps a Macy's on Main St as well.

@Mike-tp1mr 2 месяца назад

Thank you for confirming the existence of the myna bird, I only went to G. Fox a couple of times in the late 60s when I was 7 or 8 years old and thought maybe I had imagined that bird. The only other memory I had was that the toy department was on the 11th floor. I only went back once in 1985 and by then the store was only a shell of its former self and only occupied the first 5 floors. In my opinion the redevelopment of the city that started in the early 60s destroyed any identity that Hartford had and I still work downtown in a ghost town, very sad.

@goodun2974 2 месяца назад

@@Mike-tp1mr , ny father had his law office on Asylum St, nesar the corner with Pratt St ( or was it Trumbull?), a stone's throw from where the Civic center would be built, and I can confirm that Hartford went from being a fairly lively city in the 1960's to a semi-ghosttown by the late 70's. There was a combination hardware and sporting goods store, and Huntington's books adjacent to my dad's office, and I remember shopping at both, as well as G Fox and all the other stores on Main St,, but retail rent prices exploded and businesses all relocated. Nobody went to Hartford on the evening any more, or stayed there after work, except for sports games or occasional concerts at the Civic Center. The closest thing to a concentrated hub for nightclubs and bars within easy walking distance of each other was clustered around the train station.

@markrichards6863 3 месяца назад

G Fox was a great store. Shopping in Downtown Hartford rivaled larger cities. Those were good times. Suburban shopping centers and the middle class moving to the suburbs really killed Hartford.

@Tad-For-Global-Peace 2 месяца назад

Remember Newberry?

@williamyelenak1388 Год назад

Dan, love your amazing work. I’m sure you’re tired of getting suggestions for new videos, but my wife and I both lived in Hartford (students at Trinity) and driving through the other day we were talking about what Hartford and its neighborhoods looked like before 84 split it in two. I know Wallace Stevens, the Pulitzer Prize winning poet, would often walk from his office at the Hartford on Asylum Hill to a bookstore on Lewis Street. Today we don’t even consider Asylum Hill as part of downtown Hartford. Anyway, one of 1 million suggestions. Always very much look forward to watching your videos.

@historywithdansterner263 Год назад

Thanks for the suggestion! There's a Wallace Stevens walk marked by stones that follows the route between his house and where he worked at the Hartford Insurance Company, but it would be interesting to connect that to Lewis Street.

@williamyelenak1388 Год назад

Yes, there was a old bookstore on Lewis Street that became sort of a hang out for poets and writers. Stevens moved to Hartford in 1916 and remained there until his death in 1955. The two buildings where he and his wife rented still remain on Farmington Avenue along with his final residence at Westerly Terrace. I wonder if Stevens would even recognize his Hartford today. I grew up with I-84 as an integral part of Hartford, but I do wonder what it was like in Stevens day when Asylum Hill was considered part of the downtown area. And yes I’m familiar with the Stevens Walk as I’m a proud card carrying member of the Friends and Enemies of Wallace Stevens (I’m in the friends category as you probably guessed) that installed the monuments. As a lover of Hartford and history, I very much appreciate your great work.

@jaynichols7932 Год назад

Great video - Thank you for taking the time to post. I grew up outside of nearby Springfield, MA in the 60's & 70's before moving to the Hartford area in 1982 after college. My father worked at an insurance company that provided the workers compensation for Pratt & Whitney so he spend much of his time across the river at the P & W facility (Great subject for a future video). Once or twice a year (1965-1969) we would travel down to Hartford to shop at G Fox before going to dinner at a cafeteria style restaurant on Constitution Plaza (the name I cannot remember - any ideas?). Of course the best part of the trip for us kids was the expansive toy department - As I recall it was located on the top floor. I shopped at G Fox until the early 90's just before moving back to Massachusetts. Your narrative seems to stop in the mid 60's after the store was sold. Just curious about any developments since then. Thanks!

@historywithdansterner263 Год назад

Thanks for watching my video! I stopped at the point where the last major physical expansion of the store took place. I would have to do additional research to investigate what happened after that but it is an interesting suggestion. Also about Pratt Whitney, which had a long history in Hartford dating back to the 1800s!

@CityViewGuy 5 месяцев назад

I believe the restaurant on Constitution Plaza was actually a coffee shop called the 'Hob Nob'. It was on the corner of east end of the U-shaped retail space that surrounded the Willow Court that is still there but in rough condition now, and faced a koi pond that was replaced by a larger passage to the pink twin towers built to the east of the plaza in 1984. That side of the plaza retail was fully replaced with the now-empty 6-story former Travelers training center which was built in the mid 1980s.

@goodun2974 3 месяца назад

A history of drugstores in the Hartford and West Hartford area seems in order. I miss the independently-owned drugstores of my youth, many of which had a lunch counter, a sode jerk serving soda/ice cream, and so on.

@historywithdansterner263 3 месяца назад

There was a soda fountain in a drug store in Bishop's Corner in the 1980s. Recently, Suburban Pharmacy, also in Bishop's, became a CVS.

@goodun2974 3 месяца назад

@@historywithdansterner263 , There was a pharmacy on the corner of Farmington Avenue and Prospect Avenue that had a lunch counter and soda fountain in the late 1970s.

@Tad-For-Global-Peace 2 месяца назад

Walmart bought up lots of caldore’s

@Tad-For-Global-Peace 2 месяца назад

Bradley’s! Zayr’s

@shmucc 5 месяцев назад

Hi Dan, I was always interested in G Fox and the role it played in Commerce in the 1900's (Big shopping centers) Do You have any suggestions for books/videos/articles explaining it's importance within the retail history?

@historywithdansterner263 5 месяцев назад

I don't know that much is available that would provide that kind of contextual analysis. The Connecticut Museum of Cultural and History has the G. Fox collections but the only published book I know of is the biography of Beatrice Fox Auerbach: www.amazon.com/WOMAN-BUSINESS-LIFE-BEATRICE-AUERBACH/dp/1436366135

@bigdaddysantos Год назад

In the 60s the creation of the 84-91 interchange took a long time, and even longer was the 84 east - 91 north connection. (Eventually the “flyover”). The scuttlebutt during those years was that there was some friction between highway designers and G.Fox because of potential land takings. In the interim, tho, Mrs Auerbach was more than happy to keep the 84E - 91N traffic routed off the highway since it brought cars right by the G. Fox garage and provided easy access. Did you find any truth to that rumor?

@historywithdansterner263 Год назад

I've only heard it described as a rumor. I wonder if any evidence exists.

@junkandthangs Год назад

A highway that flies past your building isn't profitable... I think it was rumor

@derek2479 Год назад

Until the flyover was built ~30 years ago, one did have to get off I-84E and drive past G. Fox on downtown streets to get onto I-91N. It was annoying and I recall hearing the same story that the interchange was built that way because of Fox.

@louisekaczmarek2100 Год назад

Hi - great video! In the snapshots of Talcott Street during the 1930 G Fox warehouse construction (at the video's 23 minute point) there is a smaller building/storefront in the foreground. The left hand side of the store was Cohen Brothers Confectioners. The right hand side was a grocery store that was actually owned from about 1925 through 1928 by my great grandfather, Louis Patitucci. It looks like it has a sign above, but it's hard to read. Dan, do you know what the name of the store was? We never knew what it was officially called. It's really cool to see a photo of it!

@historywithdansterner263 Год назад

Louise, all I can make out is the word "Confectioners" above the right hand storefront, so what's shown there is an extension of Cohen Bros. They may have taken over the entire building (80-84 Talcott Street) by 1930. Two references I found in the Courant archives: one was a notice on November 13, 1926 for the funeral of Clorinda Patitucci wife of Luigi Patitucci of 84 Talcott Street and the other was for June 11, 1928 under Record of Fires for June 10 "Fire in automobile owned by Rocco Patitucci, 82 Talcott Street. Damage slight." I hope this is helpful!

@louisekaczmarek2100 Год назад

@@historywithdansterner263 Thanks - you're right it does look like the word confectioners! I guess the Cohen Bros did take over both sides, at least of the signage. In the 1931 Hartford Directory it still lists a grocery at #84, grocer's name Joseph Greco. I think that's who my family sold the store to in 1928. A bit of a mystery, but I think the Cohens owned the building, so maybe as owners they chose to have their sign across the whole front. I appreciate the Hartford Courant info, I wasn't aware I could access that online. Thanks.