Hess’s Department Store

When I was 19, in college, I was in need of a part-time job. My parents had divorced and I was responsible for part of the bills at our house. My mother and aunt were both working at Hess’s department store in downtown Lancaster. Hess’s was an upscale store, headquartered in Allentown PA, that was famous for their high fashion department, complete with models strolling through the store and the fresh strawberry pies served in their restaurants. My mother worked in the kitchen and my aunt as a bartender, the pies were made fresh daily, any leftover at closing, went home with employees, so my family was very familiar with those pies.

Downtown Lancaster went through a misguided “urban revitalization” in the mid to late 60’s, demolishing the second block of the main thoroughfare, N. Queen St. The result was derided as concrete disaster. Hess’s, in a large expansion period for the company, agreed to anchor the southwest corner of the project. The original idea was to include shops and stores along the west side of Queen St., linking it with a new hotel on the northwest corner. It was hoped that this project would stem the flow of shoppers to the recently opened Park City Mall. More on this later.

Back to my employment, the store was in need of a part-time Santa Claus. Due, in large part to my familial connections, I was hired. I became one of four store Santas, at 19, far and away the youngest. Everything done at Hess’s was first class. So it was with the Santas. Our outfits were top quality, red velvet with real fur trim. I was provided a pillow type belt to increase my girth and we were taught to apply make up, including rouge. The rouge was difficult to remove and a pink tinge always remained until a proper shower. This proved to be a bit embarrassing, leaving work at night and heading directly to a party with slightly red cheeks. We had a sleigh with two elf attendants. Their job was to manage the lines, selling pictures of the children and Santa, to the parents. During times with no lines, Santa was to “Ho, Ho, Ho” his way around the store. During this I would eventually work my way to the restaurant, the staff, hurrying to tell my mother and aunt that I was there. I was often followed by a few children, so I needed to greet my mother as Claire, couldn’t be calling her Mom in front of the little ones. From that time on, I always referred to her as Claire, she never seemed to mind.

As word spread of my part time doings, various co-eds made their way downtown to have their pictures taken in my lap. Hard work, but someone had to do it. I still have the picture of a beaming Claire in Santa’s lap. An acquaintance’s wife, unaware of Santa’s real identity, practically fainted when I called her son by name as approached the sleigh. Most memorable was a challenged child, smiling from ear to ear, who became extremely excited. I realized that he was unable to control himself and was about to vomit. I dove out of the sleigh just as he let go, maintaining my suit. We all, elves, mother and myself, rushed in to assist. The boy was fine, back to smiling, the mother was apologetic and we assured her that all was good. It caused mixed emotions on my part, sadness concerning the boy’s condition, but appreciation of his through the roof excitement and happiness when seeing Santa.

When the Christmas season eventually ended, I was asked if I wanted to transfer to the Electrical Maintenance department. I didn’t know the first thing about electrical maintenance, but I had an uncle that was an electrician, another uncle was an electrical engineer and yet another that was a lineman for the power company. So it seemed like destiny, maybe my friends would start calling me “Sparky“, (never happened). Plus, I got to wear a tool belt, I thought that was cool.

I worked under a kind and gentle man named Dean Barr. Dean was held in ridicule for his gentle ways by the stock boys in the store, not that there were any Einsteins in that group. Dean was a patient man, he taught me basic wiring and installation. At one point he was showing me how to remove a large circuit breaker from an electrical box on the second floor, when his screwdriver slipped and connected with the bus bar carrying the current. A huge spray of sparks cascaded over us, his screwdriver welded into the bar, a fuse blew and the lights on the floor went out. I had to run up to our penthouse office on the fifth floor, run back to the second and install a new fuse. Returning as Dean knocked his screwdriver out of the box, he tried to remove the breaker again. Boom, same result, sparks, welded screwdriver, blow fuse and lights out. I repeat my trek to retrieve a fuse, install and return, where Dean says, “Well, let’s hope that the third time is a charm.” It was.

My main duty as an “Electrical Maintenance” man, was to go through the store daily, before opening, noting any bulbs that needed replacing. I would then retrieve the needed bulbs, once again on the fifth floor, retrace my steps, replacing the bulbs. Now the store ceilings were sixteen feet on the merchandise floors. The light boxes contained four, forty-eight inch, florescent bulbs. Never a fan of heights, it took a couple of weeks to become comfortable being sixteen feet in the air, opening the cover, removing and replacing the bulb. The bulbs had two small metal posts on both ends that needed to be aligned with the socket on both ends, raised into the socket and twisted 90 degrees to secure. All of this done sightlessly, while stretching my arms to their limits, fingers placed over the ends of the bulb, attempting to align the posts with the socket by feel. Many sockets were cracked, or one side broken, making it that more difficult. With your fingers on the metal bulb posts, you had to time the insertion into the socket with the removal of you finger. Many time, my timing was a bit off, resulting in a shock to that arm. Arm spasmodically jerking, teeth rattling, hoping to maintain my grip on the bulb. Yes, I dropped a few bulbs, clean up was not pleasant. One time, I watched a bulb dropping to the tile floor, sixteen feet below, oscillating from end to end, preparing for it’s ultimate destruction. The bulb landed on one metal cap end, bounced to the other metal cap end, repeated this motion numerous, uncountable, increasingly faster times, until coming to a rest, fully intact. I should have played the lottery that day.

I worked there until the store abruptly closed and continued working for six months further, removing all the merchandise, fixtures, completely emptying the store. This was great work, there were eight of us, including the Operations Manager, Jerry Golden. Arriving at eight in the morning, I would immediately go to the PA room, selecting a number of albums to play on the system. Starting up the system, we would have music throughout the store all morning. We would all have coffee together until about nine. Move some merchandise to the dock, unload a truck of boxes, load a truck. Go out to lunch, come back at one and repeat until four pm.

Earlier, I said I would get back to the “urban revitalization” part of the narrative. The closing of Hess’s Department Store in Lancaster was abrupt and unforeseen. Operations Manager, Jerry Golden, told us the story of how it all happened one day at lunch.

Mr. Berman, the owner, made the trip from Allentown to Lancaster one summer day, to meet with Lancaster mayor Tom Monahan, the driving force behind Lancaster’s “revitalization“. In Mr. Berman’s opinion, Hess’s was the only part of the revitalization project that had been accomplished. The hotel was not yet in operation, no shops had been opened, the entire block was a ghost town. Berman felt that Hess’s was being left out to dry, getting no foot traffic from shops that had not materialized. Shoppers were still streaming to Park City and Mr. Berman felt that the city should provide some monetary incentive to Hess’s as they were the only thing that brought people to that block of Queen Street. Mayor Monahan, in another classic misjudgment, (the revitalization project the other), refuses, laughingly saying. “What are you going to do, close the store?” Mr. Berman stands and exiting the Mayor’s office, retorts, “Yes, today“. He walks the three blocks to the store and tells Mr. Wells, the store manager, that this will be the last day that the store will be open.

The ensuing public announcement led to the busiest day in store history. I was called at home on my day off to come in and help the stock boys. This led to me being pictured on the front page of the Lancaster newspaper, locking the store doors for the last time.