MOA Galleria - Montgomery Ward
"Ward of the Court"
Great photograph by Herman Krieger, in his equally wonderful Mall-aise Photo Essay series. This shot taken in more recent years, of a sad looking Montgomery Ward store, somewhere out there in Anytown USA. An all-too-familiar sight to many of us these days.
(Photo courtesy of and copyright ©Herman Krieger)
posted by Keith @ 11/09/2006
10 Comments:
I remember this Ward's store at Valley River Center in Eugene, OR. The exterior of this building is copper paneling which has patina all over it.
What happened to them, anyway? I mean, they went from being on top to bankruptcy. I never really shopped there, but someone must have at one time.
Scott
The "Going out of business" signage is terribly familiar to one I would see at the Wards location at the defunct Northtowne Square way back when. Wards was one of those stores my mom would go to, and I can remember eating at the restaurant that was at our location. Wards was probably the first place I been to where I discovered the earliest DBS dishes as well (Direct TV for the uninitated).
Why isnt it well known that Montgomery Wards IS still in business on the web only? They dont seem to advertise at all.
www.montgomerywards.com or www.wards.com
If you haven't checked out the full "Mall-aise" gallery, you've got to take a look at the link! I don't think I'll look at mall customers in the same way again. Great photography and very witty and apropos titles!
Heh, there's also an online shop for "Service Merchandise" as well, another store that used to be in town too.
http://www.servicemerchandise.com/
Still, I'll miss the days when department stores had "departments" besides the limited selection they have today. I can never get happy when I go to any of 'em anymore unless they don't have an electronics section.
Wards went out of business in 2001 because they didn't keep up with the times. A lot of their stores still had the drab, brownish interior design from the 70's as if you walked through a time warp, had a bloated and sterile feel to them, had a clunky logo, had a lackluster website and they were a casualty of Wal-Mart's underhanded pricing schemes.
If they ever decide to build stores again, since they're back in business on the web, they'll have to make them slim, efficent and trendy in order to keep up in the 21st Century.
Ward's was always a store that you could depend on until they opened Electric Ave and More ! I went to a grand opening in a neighboring state whild visiting family there. As I was checking out I was asked for my zip and other information to be entered into a GRAND OPENING GIVE AWAY ! Well that's when the nightmare began I of course did not win a prize but several of the New Store where fired and Investigated for stealing Customer Information and opening accounts anywhere they could. Of course I let everyone know each timeI had not opened a account.
I am now 83 and I lived through the depression which taught you many things but the bottom line is IF YOU CAN NOT PAY CASH FOR IT THEN YOU DO NOT NEED IT !
I just sent a letter to the WARDS online and asked them why are they still trying to collect a fraudulant account even since they went under ? How stupid I was to TRUST them
I just hope they don't make it *hippy* because those stores always have dark interiors and loud punk music which does NOT attract customers.
That is what made Circuit City die by over expanding and remodeling which made the *new* stores looked very weird with loud music.
In fact the new stores actually SHRUNK in size as well as helpful personal.
Our old Circuit City always had someone who knew their stuff unlike the newer stores which had NO personal.
And don't get me started on Electric Ave.
When TV's were heading digital/flat screen Wards still sold the older big fat TV's from the early/mid 90s as new and hardly anybody bought them though I bought one for my room as I personally didn't care.
I did like the Dish Network preview station when TV was more family friendly then today.
They lost out big time though I am not sure if Wards over expanded or not like Circuit City.
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