Until
the 1970s, the Denholm and McKay Company operated as the premiere
department store in Central Massachusetts, drawing people from locally
and all over New England. As a boy, Chris fell in love with the glamour
of the store and the beauty of the windows that inspired his career as a
window designer. Some of you may be sad by his words. He details the
end of the era of family owned department stores now bought out by
national chains such as Macy’s as well as the demise of his own
profession as retailers cut costs on “visual merchandizing”. I actually
feel inspired by Chris – his generosity, his dedication to the Denholm
building and downtown Worcester, his altruism and humility. What can
you say about a man who comes back here to wash and beautify the windows
of a building, pro bono? Chris now has the largest collection of
Denholm memorabilia that will someday be donated to the Worcester
Historical Museum. He has channeled his passion into a blog and a co-authored 2011 book, Denholms: The Story of Worcester’s Premiere Department Store.
The love affair with Denholms started early
"I
grew up in Princeton. My grandmother always worked here at Denholms
for almost thirty years. I used to come down with her every Saturday,
shadow her and see what she did for work and walk around….I was four
years old and I remember being taken up to the 6th floor that at the
time was the beauty salon and display department. The display people
would take and walk me around throughout the store. I remember it
clearly. It was so beautiful. I remember coming back in 1983 when they
were turning it all into offices. I went with my grandmother. There
was construction going on and she said, “I used to work here. Could I
just go in and see it one more time?” I was thirteen and my jaw
dropped. I have all the polaroids I took that day. I just couldn’t
believe the level of beauty… I mean it was New York level of beauty that
was here in this building. I remember lying and telling them I had a
term paper so the owner of the building would let me in and walk
around. I studied every square inch of this building before it was
fully converted. I knew where every single thing was - the finish on
the walls, the lettering. The building is almost like a part of me.
People joke that my ashes are going to be scattered on the roof!"
Remembering Worcester and Denholms in its heyday
" This
downtown was booming in the 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s. In the 70s, that’s
when the downtown here and across the country started fading off.
People were going to suburbia. The idea of new malls was enticing to
them. It was a different generation coming into the shopping market so a
lot of downtowns fell apart. That’s the story of Worcester."
Denholms as inspiration for a career in visual merchandising
"When
I was young, my grandmother had a big book on the building given to her
as a going away gift when she left. I would analyze every single
photo, every single window display. That’s how I got involved in this
field, inspired by Denholms and seeing what they did at the time. The
60s and 70s were the height of window display. All your budget was
thrown towards windows. They were elaborate and custom. I started
analyzing the photos and thought, “I want to do this!” It’s bittersweet
because I’m ready for the next phase in life but it’s sad to see your
industry go. It would be like seeing the theater close down
everywhere. I think you will see bust forms instead of mannequins, one
prop instead of a whole story, I think retailers are going to go real
streamline so that they can get their image across at a cheaper price.
So, now I have to come up with phase two in life and I don’t know what
phase two is."
The Real Reason Why Denholms Closed
"This
store had one bad year after the mall opened up and then it was fine.
The mall was not the reason why this store closed. The gentleman who
bought the company from the family, had a lot of other companies in
Massachusetts and Rhode Island. He owned Shepard’s Department Store in
Rhode Island, a knitwear factory in Lawrence, all failing. Denholms
paid for everything. He siphoned the equity out of this company to fuel
his other companies and then made this go bankrupt. I don’t think the
mall helped. In one year after the mall opened, revenue dropped almost
5%. It may have survived maybe another five more years but it probably
would have been bought up at some point. Now, these kind of local
department stores are almost gone. Companies like Macy’s just bought
all these stores and renamed them Macy’s. It wouldn’t have been
Denholms anymore at this point."
On Denholm’s now, 2016:
"This
is just a shell of what it was. It makes me horribly sad. I know it
could never exist anymore, the way retail is but it makes me sad to see
the condition the building is in right now. The architecture is called
“streamlined moderne” right after the art deco period before the 1950s
kitschy atomic era. This was the era of Glenn Miller and big band
music. That’s what the exterior looked like and the interior followed
suit. Denholms was a building that has been here for over 100 years and
it was constantly being maintained and upgraded. It was the most
modernized department store outside of Boston."
