THE LAST ANCHOR LEFT IN PA. TOWN
PA.» Barbara HERMITAGE,
Cake had made the sale. A man was hovering near the gold bracelets at the J.C. Penney jewelry counter when she said, “Hi, sir, how are you?” Before long, he was swiping his credit card for both a bracelet and a pair of diamond earrings for his wife. But Barbara wasn’t done.
“If she doesn’t like these,” she told the customer, “then tell her you know a lot of ladies who would.”
“I just want my husband to buy me a watch,” she continued. “She should be truly happy with these.”
Barbara ripped the receipt from the register, pointed at the flimsy paper and, in a tone that sounded as if she was revealing a sworn secret, she delivered her favorite line.
There were four days until Christmas, and this customer had decided against shopping online to come to a real store and talk to real people. To Barbara, that meant she had to provide something he couldn’t get from clicking buttons on a computer. Could the internet assure the customer that he was making the right choice? Could it praise him for being a thoughtful husband? Could it make sure that he was getting the best possible deal?
That was what Barbara could offer at the last remaining department store in the only mall in Hermitage, a city of 16,000 in western Pennsylvania. J.C. Penney used to be one of three anchor stores at the Shenango Valley Mall. Then, one day last March, both Sears and Macy’s shut down, becoming two of the more than 500 department stores that closed across the country in 2017. Headlines have called the shrinking of these American staples “the retail apocalypse.” In Hermitage, employees called it “the funeral,” because of the way it sounded as customers lined up to make their final purchases. “I’m so sorry,” they said. “I’m in shock.” “What are you going to do?” “What am I going to do?”
What might have been just a sign of the times in a bigger city was a life-changing and economy-altering loss for Hermitage, the kind of place too far from anywhere to be considered a suburb, but too developed to be considered rural or to attract visitors with small-town charm. The closest thing Hermitage has to a downtown is the intersection where its mall sits, surrounded by Mcdonald’s, Walgreens and Dunkin’ Donuts.
The biggest buildings down the road are Kohl’s, Kmart and Walmart. The retail industry is the thirdlargest employer in town, just behind health care and manufacturing.
When Macy’s and Sears closed, nearly 200 people lost their jobs — the equivalent of one out of every five retail positions in the city. In the months that followed, strips of tape kept appearing on the mall directory, blacking out the names of stores that followed suit: FYE, Rue 21, GNC, the local antiques store, Jammin Jac’s pizza shop. At many of the businesses that remained, foot traffic and sales numbers plummeted.
But come November, J.C. Penney was still open, and the most important season in retail was about to begin. General manager Sharon Loughner was confident that the rush of holiday customers was still on its way, and with little choice of where to go, they’d be coming to her store. She would need more workers to do all the extra fetching, folding, stacking and selling, and so she put out a call for seasonal employees.
Among the parade of wellqualified applicants from Hermitage and towns nearby came Barbara, a 67-yearold woman who seemed to represent all that retail used to be. She was impeccably dressed for her interview. She planned to wear a pantsuit each day. She talked about catering to the customer’s every need. She addressed everyone, no matter their age, as “sir” or “ma’am.”
For J.C. Penney to succeed, it needed employees like Barbara. Sharon thought of the department where the sale of a single item could equal a dozen sweaters in revenue.
“How would you like,” she asked Barbara, “to work behind the jewelry counter?”
Barbara accepted, not thinking about the arthritis in her hands that would make it hard to work the small clasps, the plantar fasciitis in her right foot that would act up if she stood for hours, the reading glasses she would need to see the small numbers on the price tags. She’d been an executive secretary for 30 years, and now, a few years into her retirement, had done the math on her savings, her mortgage payment and her grandchildren’s Christmas gifts and decided it was time to return to work.
The job at J.C. Penney was only guaranteed until the new year, but if she worked hard enough, she thought, they might keep her on. As a “sales associate,” she would be expected to sell around $1,500 worth of merchandise per day and would bring home $8.50 per hour, before tax.
Sometimes she worried she might be taking this position from someone who needed it more than she did. For many of her coworkers, Penney’s was a second job. Amanda in jewelry had four children to support. Tina in home goods was taking care of her sick mother. Marcia in the men’s department had been laid off when Macy’s left. The employees bristled every time a customer said, “Is Penney’s going to close, too?”
Fewer than 100 people still worked at the mall year-round.
One of them was Don Howell, the man some shoppers called the rent-a- cop, but who called himself director of public safety.
When the mall tenants kept complaining that the building’s New Jerseybased owner wasn’t doing anything to improve the mall’s situation, Don decided to give himself another title: assistant mall manager. That is how he introduces himself when he emails established retail giants in hopes they will take a chance on the mall. He’s reached out to Target and Rural King, Boscov’s and Dick’s Sporting Goods. He’s in talks with a local bakery that might be interested in the old GNC space. So far, the biggest success has been a local coffee shop that opened in what used to be an American Eagle.
When he hears shoppers complaining about the state of the mall, he offers them a simple solution: “Use it,” he says, “or lose it.”
Three days before Christmas, Barbara met a 7-yearold named A.J., whose mother had given him $50 from her Social Security check, her only income, to buy her a Christmas gift. A.J. asked his grandparents to take him to buy her some jewelry.
“She likes pink,” A.J. told Barbara.
“She likes earrings that dangle,” his grandmother said.
Barbara walked them to the cases of sterling silver hoops, to the bracelets, to the pendants with 1/10 karat of a diamond on special for $25.
“Nothing gold?” the grandmother asked.
Barbara placed her hand over her brooch. “Not for $50,” she apologized.
She walked them back to the case of gold anyway, opened it and started taking out each box, scanning bar codes and adding all the coupons she could.
“His mom doesn’t have too much real stuff,” A.J.’S grandmother explained.
In the corner of the case, Barbara found a $124 pair of earrings on sale for $31.79. The jewels were cubic zirconia, but the thin metal loops were 10-karat gold.
“A bargain,” she promised. A.J. gave her a thumbs up.
Barbara looked at her watch as she rang them up. She had spent nearly 40 minutes helping them. She knew she wouldn’t meet her sales goal today.
By Dec, 23, the slowdown had begun. Barbara’s manager posted a sign at the counter saying the fine jewelry department was less than $8,000 from its holiday season goal. “Ladies!” she wrote. “Keep pushing, we’re almost there!” But the snow was coming down during Barbara’s closing shift, and she knew it would stop her customers from visiting.
In a few days, the store managers would call Barbara to ask if she’d like to stay on after the holidays.