Today's AJC Deja News comes to you from the Friday, May 2, 1975, edition of The Atlanta Constitution.
RICHARD H. RICH DIES AT AGE 73
When Sears filed for bankruptcy in October 2018, it was already an “endangered species” in metro Atlanta.
"Sears Holdings, which includes Sears and Kmart stores, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, with plans to close 142 stores in addition to 46 closings that had already been slated," the AJC's Matt Kempner wrote of the announcement's local impact.
In the early 20th century, as chain department stores thrived, Sears proved an innovator in the Atlanta market. The AJC's Nedra Rhone points out how the giant Sears on Ponce de Leon Avenue, built in 1926, "allowed shoppers to avoid the traffic, congestion and crowds of the Five Points area downtown where Atlanta's retail scene had been centered."
Credit: AJC PRINT ARCHIVES
Credit: AJC PRINT ARCHIVES
One Atlanta merchant who balked at this style of decentralized retailing was Richard H. Rich, who took the helm of Rich's, his family’s department store firm, in 1949. Since its start in 1867, Rich’s was a civic partner to a rapidly-changing Atlanta. When Rich died in 1975, city officials and fellow executives lauded his work in the community.
"[He] worked just as hard to keep downtown Atlanta alive and growing as he ever did in merchandising everything from socks to refrigerators," AJC columnist Celestine Sibley and reporter Frank Wells wrote in the May 2, 1975, Constitution announcement of his death at age 73.
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“Born Richard Rosenheim, son of a Savannah wholesaler,” the story says, “[Richard Rich] adopted the surname Rich when he was 19 years old at the request of his mother’s father, Morris Rich, who recognized in his grandson an eventual successor to the helm of the family business.”
The man who led Rich’s through a quarter-century of modernization grew up in the store.
“Young Rich himself often came to Atlanta during summer vacation to stay with his grandparents and work at Rich’s,” Sibley and Wells wrote. “His first job was that of a $15-a-week package wrapper.”
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Credit: LANE BROS. PHOTOGRAPHIC COLLECTION/GSU
Credit: LANE BROS. PHOTOGRAPHIC COLLECTION/GSU
Rich did his best to keep downtown Atlanta the center of local retailing. In the 1950s, when competitors jumped eagerly into the new suburban malls popping up around town, he held back.
“[He] would not open branch stores in outlying shopping centers until certain conditions he set were met,” Sibley and Wells noted. “These included a metro population of one million, a downtown store as attractive as any in the shopping centers -- and with adequate parking -- and an adequate expressway system to keep the downtown store accessible.”
Rich’s opened its first suburban store, at Lenox Square, in 1959.
In July 1976, Federated Department Stores announced that it would acquire Rich’s in a deal worth nearly $160 million. In March 2005, the Rich’s nameplate was retired after 138 years, its metro area stores taking the Macy’s moniker. The flagship downtown store closed in 1991. Today, the holiday tradition of riding the Pink Pig goes on at Macy’s Lenox Square, as does the Great Tree lighting. Both were originally held at the Five Points store.
Now Sears struggles for survival here. What catapulted Sears to 20th century retail supremacy proved the catalyst to its current troubles: mail order sales.
“In its mail-order business, Sears was Amazon-like long before Amazon existed, shipping goods to 11 million customers a year by 1927,” Rhone writes. Sears discontinued its iconic print catalog in 1993; by 1998, upstart Amazon was selling merchandise online, setting the stage for the next retail revolution.
“Sears lost focus with attempts to diversify, found itself overextended when suburban malls faltered and lost ground to stores such as Walmart,” Kempner states. “Like many other traditional retailers, it struggled to compete online against more nimble rivals. And its brand and image became fuzzy.”
The now-shuttered metro Atlanta Sears locations include Gwinnett Place, North Point Mall in Alpharetta, Southlake Mall in Morrow and Mall at Stonecrest and Northlake Mall in DeKalb County.
Only the Town Center at Cobb and Arbor Place (Douglasville) stores remain.
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