Cleveland Memories - How We Shopped (Part 1)

This is the Classic PBS Documentary about the Golden Age of legendary Cleveland area department stores. It includes interviews with local TV personalities as well as eyewitness accounts from people who remember fondly the memories of their childhoods and youth, and the magic of shopping in those wonderful Cleveland area stores. Going downtown to shop was something to look forward to, and something to remember.
Enjoy a trip down Memory Lane with this one-of-a-kind program, gathered from stock footage, with many personal accounts from lifelong Cleveland area residents. If you are among those privileged to share some of those memories from the 1950s and 60s, you will appreciate this even more. Be sure to comment and feel free to share this video compilation with family and friends.

[@Reubenhubert]

From the mid 60s through the early 70s we would go downtown with Mom to do our Christmas shopping. Dad would drop us off on his way to work in the afternoon. The decorations, lights, and displays made the city a magical place for kids. We admired the animated window displays, marveled at the Sterling Lindner tree, shopped at the Twigbee Shop for cheap gifts, we visited Santa Claus and Mr. Jingaling on Halle's 7th floor, we ate at Higbee's Silver Grill and always got hamburgers and fries, we rode countless escalators including some old wooden ones, and we walked forever from store to store in the snow and cold. When we were done we took the Number 52 CTS bus back to the suburbs. It made memories that will never fade.

[@tommyd.743]

Worked at The May Co. in the mid seventies. It was still active for shopping then. A lot of small shops all along Euclid Ave. My first date with my later to be wife was lunch at The Old English Oak Room under the Terminal Tower. She's surprised that I can still remember that day. More surprised that I still remember what she had. LOL

[@shirleysmith9375]

a lot of my favorite memories. since my birthday was so close to Christmas, my aunt used to take me to public square and see all the animated window displays, then we had lunch at the Silver Grill then we would go shopping then we'd see a movie. On our way home, in the rapid transit terminal, she would buy me 2 frosted malts at the soda fountain and they came in small coke style glasses. Then we'd board the rapid and go to Van Aken and ,my uncle would pick us up. such wonderful, cherished memories. I sure wish my grandkids could be able to experience this.

[@luannebole-becker5483]

This documentary's title is actually called "The Way We Shopped." My husband and I produced it for WVIZ.

[@ksw8415]

Did you both grow up in the Cleveland area? I married and moved away in 1975 but Cleveland will always be home. So many wonderful memories. Thank you for this.

[@scottholder7374]

What year did this documentary debut?

[@Davett53]

10/2023......Yay! Cleveland........Born in 1953,.....we went downtown fairly often,....took the Rapid Transit. Higbee's & Halle's,....and The May Company. We loved exploring the Terminal Tower.

[@rosemariekury9186]

Right! We used to dress up with gloves and hats. We lived in east Cleveland and my grandmother would take us on the bus to go there. It was an event! Later on my first job there was the May Company. There was also an arcade you'd walk through to get from Euclid to Prospect avenue. When I worked downtown in the early 60s I'd take the Rapid Transit. Wonderful. We have light rail here in Salt Lake but no express service and buses don't run all night like they did in Cleveland then. I don't remember too many people driving downtown to work then.

[@nancysalisbury6506]

This was so exciting to see! I loved to go shopping in downtown especially at Christmas! We lived in Willowick and I got to ride the bus the first time I got to go by myself. I remember the stores like it was yesterday.

[@briankay4229]

Remember talking the bus with my mom, from Brecksville to downtown. It was the mid 60's. Then take the Rapid Transit in the bottom of Terminal Tower to visit Grandma on the West side. For an 8 yr old kid, that was quite an adventure.

[@thejoeyd9207]

A different time and a better age for our great city.

[@fatimamiller9898]

wow brings back old memorys my home town

[@timy.4818]

OMG ! If you hit a rainstorm before you got on the streetcar, your pants were already up to your knees ! Love it.

[@garrison7888]

Great days, too bad they will never come back. If stores had great windows like this now the Far-left would say "stop this the kids are having too much fun" I also remember Stetson shoes on 12th & Euclid, Jerry Mills on 9th and Prospect and all the strange stores on Prospect ( Dan the Hatter etc)

[@brooklynbummer]

Worked at Coles, next door to May Company and a short walk to Woolworth. So crowded during Christmas and lit up for the holidays.

[@snacks123]

Higbees :)

[@marshasimpson261]

To bad we can’t go back!

[@sustainfem]

Thanks so much for posting this! I have been looking for it for years. For some reason, WVIZ does not have it for sale. This is the next best thing!! Really great memories.

[@luannebole-becker5483]

My husband and I produced this documentary for WVIZ. I believe 20-year rights on music have run out. :-)

[@dannysgirl1549]

I use to take the rapid transit downtown when I was a young. I’d catch it at the west 58th street station. Got off at the terminal tower and pick up dresses my older sisters would buy that they had altered to fit at one of the department store. I loved it.

[@barrykrajeski5598]

Was the station on 58th on Loraine?

[@dannysgirl1549]

@@barrykrajeski5598 yes it was.

[@barrykrajeski5598]

@@dannysgirl1549 I grew up in that area too in the 60s and 70s. I liked living there and moved to Az.in 1980 and heard it's a scary neighborhood now.Sad.

[@dannysgirl1549]

@@barrykrajeski5598 yes it is. We moved to Lakewood in the late 60’s. It was a great area to grow up in. My family, and our cousins, lived across the street from ST. Stephens. That’s where we all went to school and church. I went back down there a few years ago and couldn’t believe all of the changes. Some of them are good. People are remodeling the old houses and building new ones. That I liked seeing. 🙂

[@marcelinasouthall3398]

Oh and the 5&10 Woolworths was every Saturday and then the Form Restaurant on Huron and eat

[@dianaroth9073]

My mom and nana worked at Halle Brothers.

[@Thompsonnw]

5:57, Eddie McGue is my late wheel chaired uncle.

[@scottholder7374]

I am a 24 year old who grew up in the suburbs. I wish America’s cities were still like this. The interstate highway system and suburbanization was a mistake. Trolleys and streetcars should have never been removed.

[@safffff1000]

I think now those highways and suburbs let you live pretty god life away from those insane democratic run cities now.

[@littlerivernews6109]

still have a chest of drawers stenciled Yeagers 1954 on the back

[@shopsshire9282]

Course now the old Higbee's at Public Square in Cleveland is now Jacks Casino course during the holidays they try to recreate the windows on the streets of Ontario and Euclid an app Woolworths on Euclid near East 4th Street is now the House of Blues

[@urbanviii5103]

@10:40, got to love that mullet. "Business up front, party in the back". Severely tacky hairdo of any era.

[@barrykrajeski5598]

That aint no mullet.

[@urbanviii5103]

@@barrykrajeski5598 Does that style have a name?

[@barrykrajeski5598]

@@urbanviii5103 Looks like long hair hippy in the 70s to me.I don't think he went to a salon and got a hairdo.Maybe a hairdon't Ha! Ha! You probably wouldn't like my hairdo either totally bald.To each his own.To me a real mullet do is really goofy looking worse than his.

[@BrookeWillis]

Great video! Too bad the volume is sooo low.

[@tboda2621]

Brooke Willis The volume doesn't have to be too low!!! It is totally up to the people who originally put this together. Sound engineers are supposed to KNOW BETTER!! Sometimes I wonder. Just, "Ride the fader on, 'low red'" Day one, sound engineer academy. Although this is probably a copy, but there should still be enough common sense to put enough juice on the copy to be AUDIBLE!!!

[@BrookeWillis]

@@tboda2621 I think they must have adjusted it!

[@dancostello6465]

Looks like Cleveland was a nice place. "It was like Oz." What happened.

[@frostyjim2633]

It's so much better with all the wonderful diversity we have now

[@Tony85911]

What happened????

[@jerryfan4ever294]

And now Covid is putting out of business all of the so many restaurants that have helped to revitalize so much of the City. From Downtown to Hingetown

[@farmer6987]

Wonder what ruined it