Trends Reviews and Recaps

One Paul Kaplan writes in a recent issue of the Philadelphia Inquirer, lamenting the local effects of the proposed merger between May Department Stores Co. and Federated Department Stores Inc. (“Strawbridge’s is More Than Just a Name,” March 16):

Another merger, another loss of local culture. Some of the grand old names of retailing are about to fade into memory, names that define not only a time but a place: Marshall Field’s, nearly synonymous with Chicago; Hecht’s, with its flagship store across the street from the White House; Kaufmann’s, the retail anchor of downtown Pittsburgh; and now, our own beloved Strawbridge’s.

There’s a Hecht’s outpost “across the street from the White House”?

No such store existed when I lived in that city.

Nor is there one at such location now.