Rich's (department store)

Rich's was an American department store chain founded in 1867 by Mauritius Reich. It operated in the southern United States, and was headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, until it was dissolved in favor of the Macy's brand in 2005.

History

Beginnings

The retailer began in Atlanta as M. Rich & Co., a dry goods store, on 28 May 1867,[1] at 36 Whitehall Street. The sole proprietor was Mauritius Reich (Anglicized to Morris Rich), a Hungarian Jewish immigrant. It was renamed M. Rich & Bro. in 1877, when Morris and brother Emanuel formed a partnership. In 1884, when the third brother Daniel was admitted into the partnership, the name became M. Rich & Bros. With business success came a need for expansion, and the store was moved to ever larger locations: in July 1875 to 35 Whitehall; in September 1875 to 43 Whitehall; in October 1875 to 65 Whitehall, at the corner of Hunter (now M.L. King Blvd.); and in September 1882 to 54-56 Whitehall.[2]

Holiday traditions

Two holiday traditions associated with Rich's were the Great Tree and the Pink Pig Flyer. Starting in 1948, the Great Tree, conceptualized by executive Frank Pallotta, was a massive pine, set on top of the multi-level glass "Crystal Bridge" connecting the main downtown Atlanta store which housed the "Store for Fashion" 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 featured 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." The Pink Pig (installed in 1956, and known originally as The Snowball Express) was a child-scaled monorail which was suspended from the ceiling of a portion of the Plaza level of the Store for Homes. Riders had a bird's-eye view of the toy department below. In 1965, it was moved to the roof of the store where a second monorail was added and the duo became known as the Pink Pig Flyers (receiving the names of Priscilla and Percival in the 1970s). The front car of the trains had pig faces and the last cars had curly tails. For many years after the closure of the downtown store, the Pink Pigs were set up at the Festival of Trees at the Georgia World Congress Center. Macy's Lenox Square continued the holiday tradition using a redesigned child-sized train (rather than a monorail) set up on the top level of the Lenox Road Parking Deck. The train ride took riders through a storybook tale of Priscilla Pig. The Pink Pig Flyer did not operate during the 2020 season due to the COVID-19 Pandemic. In September 2021 Macy's announced it would retire the Pink Pig Flyer. The original Pink Pig Flyers monorail cars are at the Atlanta History Center where they are occasionally displayed.

Note: Some sources incorrectly present the origination of the monorail ride as having been in 1953. When researching for his book, Rich's: A Southern Institution, author Jeff Clemmons verified the premier date was in 1956.

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.

The same year that Rich's and Macy's merged, the downtown Macy's (Davison's flagship store) was closed. Also in the merger, the Lenox Square Macy's and Perimeter Mall Macy's (both former Davison's) reopened as Bloomingdale's. The Perimeter Mall Macy's closed in March 2012, reopening as a branch of the Von Maur chain. The Greenbriar Mall Macy's closed in April 2021. The Cumberland Mall, Lenox Square, Northlake Mall, and Town Center Macy's remain open as of 2022. When the Cobb Center Mall store closed in 2004, the furniture clearance center was relocated to Town Center.

In 1995, the downtown Atlanta Rich's 1924 store became part of the Sam Nunn Atlanta Federal Center. It is known as "The 1924 Building". The Store For Homes, the "Crystal Bridge," and a concrete parking deck with a locally-famous spiral down ramp were razed, 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 Atlanta Journal before its merger with The Atlanta Constitution.

former name	Rich's–Macy's (2003–2005)
type	Subsidiary
industry	Retail
genre	Department stores
founded	May 28, 1867 in Atlanta, Georgia
founder	Mauritius Reich
defunct	March 5, 2005
fate	Acquisition by Federated Department Stores
successor	Macy's
hq location	Atlanta, Georgia, United States
area served	Southern United States
owner	Federated Department Stores (1976–2005)

Rich's (department store)

History

Beginnings

Holiday traditions

Dear Store

Expansion

Federated

Closures of Davison's/Macy's stores

Name changes

The Rich Family

Rich's Flagship Store 1924–1991

See also

Further reading

External links

References