Word: stores
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...Brown, 43, was lured away from the James B. Beam Distilling Co. to become president of Park & Tilford Distillers Corp. He succeeds Arthur D. Schulte, who continues as chief executive officer in his new job as board chairman, vacant since the death (in 1949) of his father, Cigar-Store-Chain Founder David A. Schulte. A native New Yorker, Brown started selling shoes at 18, studied journalism in New York University night school, tried reporting for New York's Daily Mirror, went back to selling shoes, later became general merchandise manager for Chicago's Goldblatt Brothers department store...
Without Tips. Even the surviving stores could not, with rare exceptions, stay in business without "extras"-greeting cards, fountain pens, records, etc. J. R. ("Jack") Cominsky, publisher of the Saturday Review, suggested to booksellers that they add travel bureaus, ticket bureaus and Western Union branches to stay afloat; he did not even want bookstores to be called bookstores, quoted a department-store president who suggested "community centers for modern living." Book clerks are underpaid, frequently know little about their wares. Said one, a veteran of 40 years in the largest bookshops: "The turnover in employees is greater than the turnover...
...blame the shop owner himself for his plight. His chief drawback: no business sense. Among those who think so is Chicago's Carl Kroch, president of the largest independent bookstore in the U.S. Says Bookseller Kroch, who has just spent $500,000 on refurbishing his own flourishing Chicago store on Wabash Avenue: "Too many people-little old ladies-think bookselling is a nice thing, so they start off with too little capital and a tiny stock...
...Peck. Kroch, whose famous father Adolph retired in 1952 after 45 years as a successful independent book dealer, is making no such mistake. The store has a stock of 600,000 volumes. The extras are there, from poker chips to toy Liberace pianos, but the book's the thing. In the store's 40,000 sq. ft., modern design and display are geared to catch the customer's attention. No sentimentalist, young Kroch has introduced supermarket methods in a special self-service department for paperbacks and reprints, provides gaily colored baskets to encourage customers to buy them...
Bookmen all over the U.S. hope that Chicago's big Kroch store will show how bookselling can be kept alive and profitable. Papa Kroch, who got started in a store the size of a closet and once said that "a bookseller without a soul is but a ribbon clerk," is convinced that son Carl has the right idea: "It is a fairy tale that books will disappear. Books will remain and books will be read...