Blumenthal's Big & Tall

Blumenthal's Clothing Store, formerly at 358 South Elm Street & presently at 4620 West Market Street, has been a Greensboro institution since 1926. A great photo of the former downtown location is seen here. Also, the Greensboro Historical Museum has on display the neon sign from inside the Elm Street store. The sign tells about the offer of the customer receiving a free pack of cigarettes if the last letter of their receipt matched the number on the sign. It was always so much fun to see if you had a winning receipt, even after cigarettes fell out of favor as a prize!

According to a News& Record article September 2010, Blumenthal's is closing everything but the Big & Tall portion of their business. For us, it is always sad to see the end of those old Greensboro businesses. In the above photo, you see the Blumenthal's mobile as well as a view of the Market Street location. While the Market Street store has great products at reasonable prices, gone is the provenance of the downtown store-- squeeky wooden floor boards, old wood and glass counters from the 1920's, converse tennis shoes and Dickies work pants (when nobody else had them), the chance of a prize with purchase, employees with tape measures around their neck.

This is our contribution to Ruby Tuesday! With that bright yellow vehicle, the photo could have worked for Mellow Yellow Monday! Honk if you love Blumenthal's!

Comments

[B^2]

Something more than stores were lost. A big part of who we were was lost, also.

[Jack]

Sorry to see one more local institution go away. But, as one who needs those specialty stores for tall folks, I am glad that at least they kept the B&T shop.

[Emily]

When my UNCG friends and I were out of jeans, we'd take the bus downtown to go to BLUMENTHALS for Levi's. It was a big airy old, old warehouse looking building just as you described. Large tables stacked high with denim. You'd have to dig to find your size...mine was on the bottom - a slender 25 inch waist. We felt like we got away with a bargain at about 7-8-9 dollars a pair.