Steve & Barry's and old stores

3-4 years ago, Jenn and I were at a mall near Detroit. I really love going to malls and just seeing what is there. Anyway, we stumbled on to a cool store called Steve & Barry's.

We could not believe how great this store was. They had a fun selection of cool novelty shirts, college team shirts and jackets, and other great clothes items. Everything was about $7! The jackets may have been $13 or so, but everything was very affordable. Christmas was months away, but we did all of our Christmas shopping right there on the spot. We carried out huge bags of future Christmas presents and spent well under $100.

Holy Carp! Was this Detroit's well kept secret? A lot of regional areas have great shops. Maybe it had been around Detroit for a long time, but we just found out about it.

We both agreed that a trip to Steve and Barry's would be justification for future road trips to the Motor City.

We realized that would not be necessary. Steve and Barry's seemed to pop up on all of our road trips. We shopped at Steve and Barry's in Buffalo, Erie, Florence, and many other familiar towns. A mall a few miles from our home in Cleveland at the time got one. Steve and Barry's was becoming an exciting chain of stores-thank goodness!

I love novelty t-shirts, and I found a bunch of great ones at Steve and Barry's. My favorites include the orange prison number shirt. "Rehab is for quitters" is a classic too. Fictitious sports team shirts are always good. I will not discuss the rude innuendo type stuff, but my dad and cousin always got one on the holidays.

Maybe 6 months to a year ago I realized a couple of Steve and Barry's shops were folding. I didn't think much about it at first. No big deal. That happens.

Then I slowly realized, they were all closing. Who could supply me with my novelty t-shirts now?

I guess I just now noticed that they are all gone. All of them.

This is, in a very urban way of thinking, sad. I know in Florence, there is the vacant Steve and Barry's. The sign is still up. It might be for some time.

I know in Owensboro, at least last time I was there, the old Keuster's store still had their signs up, though it has been closed for several years.

There are a lot of traces of former chains and old stores from the past. Every city I have been to recently has an abandoned, almost spooky looking former Circuit City. There are 2 within a few miles from my home.

I walked past one in Memphis recently, it was at night. Peeking in to their big windows and seeing nothing was sad. People were once employed there. Just a few years ago, in some cases, just a few months, these were lively, busy businesses in the community.

"This American Life" recently did a great show about Circuit City closing, and they played short interviews with people after losing their jobs at Circuit City stores. Former employees talked about jacking prices back up before they started their "going out of business" sales. They talked about the last item sold in a store, and even how everything was for sale, including bathroom items. It was a great show, I am sure you can download it somewhere on the internet.

A web site I like to check ever so often is deadmalls.com. It talks about, well, dead malls. If you travel, or if you move around a lot, malls often become very familiar. For professional reasons I spent a lot of time in malls around Cleveland. I noticed that some of those malls have, after struggling, closed for good. Turfland Mall in Lexington JUST closed up for good. I spent a lot of time there in college.

Don't get me wrong, I will take a nice wooded park any day of the week over a mall. But, as many others in my generation, I have grown up in malls. I have spent a lot of time in big box stores. I feel some nostalgia connected to malls and stores.

I know Steve & Barry's is gone now. A lot of malls and other places are no more. Even though I was probably in a Steve and Barry's in the last year, walking in to one again now would be pleasant. It just seems like the chain hit the scene a few years ago, and already it is no more.