Hardware City’s Peak Years
By Diane L. Mechlinski at April 29, 2024 | 7:00 am | Print
Downtown New Britain in bygone days held a special atmosphere. It was alive with activity, business and people. Residents consider 1920-60s the prime years of the City.
What was it like?
The Gates Building, then home to Michael’s Jewelers, maintained a hive of attorneys in its upper floors. The Burritt Hotel’s dining room was where one headed for special occasion dinners; it was the best dinner to be had downtown.
Downtown streets were abundant with custom and commerce. Ground-level shoppers could browse Michael’s Jewelers and Art Jones, B.C. Porter and Kolodney Hardware, while brokers and bankers and businessmen worked in postwar offices above the stores.
By evening, factory workers from Fafnir, Stanley Works, American Hardware and Corbin Screw crowded the streets in search of entertainment and reprieve from work. There were the movie houses – the Capitol, the Embassy and the magnificently marbled Strand. There were also prizefights at the New Britain Arena and industrial league baseball at Walnut Hill Park.
Businesses which called downtown home included Grants, a popular store on Main St. that opened in 1925 and became the city’s favorite shopping spot for many. Another was Lifshutz 5, 10 and $1 Department Store which underwent major expansion in 1952 when it increased floor space to 12,000 sq. ft.
Stanley Shoes thrived on Main St. for many years. It opened in the early 1940 at a time when downtown New Britain was considered the place to find any assortment of clothing and accessories. When it opened, there were about 22 other shoe stores throughout New Britain, accentuating the city’s clothing stores. Stanley Shoes also provided special order shoes that could not be found elsewhere. Much business came from doctors’ referrals.
An enlarged and modernized furniture store, Morans, opened in November 1946, featuring new store displays and decorations. Their visual front, a new development then in store planning and one of the first installations of its size in the country, had many unique features. Styling was planned and executed by Alfons Bach who was then the country’s most famous architect, known for his fine furniture designs and excellence in interior decorating.
Raphael’s Department Store, founded in 1910, presented itself as one of the finest modernly-designed retail stores of its kind in New England when it enlarged and re-opened in October 1939. Showcases and counters were arranged and spread about to allow a more space for customers and clerks to move in. The store stocked the latest merchandise on the market. Space increased from 17,000 sq. ft. to 31,000 sq. ft., occupying three floors. Female clerks were uniformly dressed in black dresses with white accessories.
The main floor of Raphael’s held the men’s, drug and shoe departments, hosiery and women’s underwear, handbags, jewelry, gloves sportswear, budget dresses and hats. A winding stairway led to a second level devoted to women’s ready-to-wear clothes, a beauty parlor, corsets, shoes, millinery and negligee departments. During peak periods, the store employed 400, including salespeople and behind-the-scenes personnel.
Known as the “ Hardware City of the World” the city had a gem of a hardware store with Kolodney’s. Opening in 1927, the Kolodney brothers, Ralph and Samuel, leased space on Main St. Fifteen years later, they bought the building on W. Main St. where they remained for 50 years. They featured home delivery of phone orders, pledged trained salesmen available to give information to customers on home repair problems.
In 1932, Ralph and Samuel Kolodney were joined by a third brother, Abraham, who left law school in his last year to enter the family business, figuring it would offer him a better career. The store became known as being able to provide nearly-impossible-to-find gadgets and hardware supplies.
Lerner Shops opened in June 1951. Lerner’s was the largest chain of women’s and children’s apparel in the U.S. Two officials of the Lerner Stores arrived in New Britain from Boston to negotiate the lease. The executive vice president asked to see the Stanley and Corbin factories of which he’d heard so much. He said that Corbin hardware was used exclusively in all his stores.
A fixture in New Britain, Jimmy’s Smoke Shop, opened in 1928. A quality smoke shop where factory workers bought cigarettes and their bosses bought cigars, newspaper readers could choose from over a dozen dailies from NY, Boston and Hartford. It was where a gentlemen’s club of business executives called the “Knights of the Pin Table” played nickel-a-game pinball. Bankers, bus drivers, lawyers, laborers, priests and politicians mingled and swapped stories about the city they shared and called home.
