Fortunoff, R.I.P.

Posted by: Monica Gagnier on March 05

I’ve been on the West Coast since December, except for a brief trip home in January to rent out our house again on craigslist.org, so I’m not up to date on my East Coast news.

That’s why I was shocked to learn that New York retailer Fortunoff is being liquidated. I found out earlier this week by reading the “Brand Graveyard” column on Salon.

I know the retail sector is under great pressure and that well-known chains like Circuit City and Linens ‘n Things have recently gone under. But what made me sad about the demise of the retailer was that it was a family business that Max and Clara Fortunoff founded in Brooklyn in 1922. The Mom-and-Pop retailer survived the Great Depression!

In the name of disclosure, I should mention that I know a member of the Fortunoff family, but I met her long after my love affair with the home goods and jewelry purveyor began.

I remember the first thing I bought from Fortunoff. The year was 1983 and I was furnishing my first New York apartment, a studio in Astoria, Queens. I bought a butcher-block cart for my Pullman-style kitchen.

Along with my futon, my rowing machine, and a folding table and two chairs that I bought from Conran's (another now-defunct home furnishings retailer), the butcher-block cart was a key piece of furniture in my spartan apartment.

I saw the item, which was priced under $100, in an advertising insert in the Sunday edition of The New York Times. I ordered it over the phone (no Internet back then!). It came promptly and I put it together with my newly acquired toolkit.

I had furnished my college apartments with hand-me-downs and castoffs, and I wanted to start fresh when I came to New York City and got my first job, as a financial writer at Fairchild Publications, making $11,500 a year. Everything in my apartment was something I liked and that I had purchased.

I picked up smaller items at branches of a 5-and-10 in New York called Lamston Stores, which was acquired by Woolworth and then went out of business during the last big downturn.

Where is the butcher-block cart now, you might ask? I lost it in a divorce settlement in 1994. My first husband didn't feel like shopping when we split up, so he bought all of my furniture, including the trusty butcher-block cart.

Before we went our separate ways, my former husband (a native Long Islander) and I spent many happy hours shopping at Fortunoff on Long Island, for friends' wedding presents and furnishings for our Jackson Heights (N.Y.) condo.

This wasn't "retail therapy." It was a rite of passage for a couple in their twenties starting out in the world. These were not credit-card purchases; they were made with hard-earned cash from first, second, and even third jobs.

In addition to working at Fairchild, I sold furniture at Conran's on the weekends and did typesetting (the trade still existed then) two or three nights a week. My former husband was even more entrepeneurial. He had his fingers in many pies.

Our nesting activities were going on back before Bed, Bath & Beyond and Target became ubiquitous. We did have an IKEA in the New York area then, but it was over by Newark International Airport, quite a trek from our "bridge-and-tunnel" abode.

As spokeswoman Lauren Bacall used to say in the advertising campaign for the Fifth Avenue jewelry store, Fortunoff was the "source." It didn't matter if you were buying wedding china or an outdoor grill, Fortunoff was the place to go. It had the best prices and the best selection around.

Even though I haven't been to a Fortunoff in years, it makes me sad to know that another Mom-and-Pop business has gone to the "Brand Graveyard."

The Fortunoff family actually sold out to foreign investors a few years ago. Maybe that was part of the problem. The new owners didn't have the intimate connection to the New York market that the family had.