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March 9, 2006

Why is Read's such a mystery?

I went to one of Joe Celli's salsa parties a couple of weeks ago. It was on the top floor of the old Read's Department Store building on Broad and John. If you've been reading any of my former entries here, you know how significant that was for me.

Before I go any further, I wish to extend a pox to whoever has been placing ads for online poker, prescription medicines or whatever in our comments area. That's blog abuse!

Anyway, back to Read's. The top floor, I'm told, had offices, a beauty salon and a bank of public telephones. I can tell by the existing architectural elements that the top floor wasn't just retail space. There is a central corridor with faintly decorative arches and some arch-shaped niches in the wall, which I'm guessing was glassed-in retail display. Still, I can't quite picture how it all came together. It seems like such a large space for so little. I had assumed the restaurant was up there, but I'm told it was on the main floor.

Mind you, when this all shut down, I was a teen-ager living in New Jersey. I had never been to Bridgeport, although Mom used to take me to Philadelphia, Allentown and Atlantic City for our own version of Read's: Homberger's, Lit Bros., Wannamakers, Hess's. They all had storied histories and depressing endings similar to Read's.

You'd think working at the Post, I'd have access to vast archives that would fill in the blanks. I don't. And the newspaper coverage at the time seemed much more concerned with being optimistic about the future (Read's moved to the Crossroads Mall in 1981) than being sentimental about the past. And you'd think being surrounded by people who remember Read's, and who I've grilled about those memories, I'd be satisfied. But interior photos are rare, and oral histories are not very reliable.

It would be nice to see comments other than spam. If anyone has memories, or even photos!, please send them this way for us all to enjoy. I've gotten all I can from Google searches and our microfilm.

Posted by lsteele on 10:58 AM | Comments (73)