The New General Store

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• Interesting wikipedia link. Many former locations in New York and New Jersey, 3 former locations in Windsor, but not a single location across the river anywhere in the State of Michigan. Did K-Mart and Hudson's overwhelm the whole Detroit retail scene?

• I don't know if the old Woolco and Kmart even compare to Walmart. Don't forget that downtown Windsor still had a thriving retail base in the 70's and 80's. People went to places like Woolco and Kmart to buy cheap clothes and appliances, but if you wanted the latest styles, your best bet was downtown. The big-box stores remind me more of the giant, government-owned stores that operated in socialist countries before the fall of Communism than Kmart or Woolco.

• Consumers Distributing reminds me of what M & M Meats does now, although with M & M the wait is pretty minimal to get your stuff.

• Interesting website, John. Yes it's veeeeerrrrrryyy basic, but it gets the point across. The guy who set up that site should have omitted the captions attached to the pictures, and gotten rid of at least half of the "rectal exam" references. Its funny how a man could walk around confidently back then in white shorts, tounging bears and wearing polka dotted shirts, but I digress.

  I used to pick out my Christmas presents in the Consumer's catalogue every year, then my mom would probably end up going to Zellers or K Mart to get the presents. I went into consumers once with her, and even as a child found it bizarre that you couldn't just go back there and get the stuff yourself ; )

• If I were alive back then, and writing for the Star, I would have described the place as "A department store with no departments". But hey, give the guy credit, it was the 60s, man.

• Thanks Andrew for the Wiki link I never even thought to check that.
  On the states side they had something similar to consumers and they were called Service Merchandise also bankrupt.

  Here is the Wiki link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Service_merchandise

• I agree that going to Consumers was a pain but the catalogue... oh it was so much fun to plan out what you wanted for your birthday...

• I am surpraised they have not knocked this building down it has been sitting vacant for years.

• It's funny when you drive by this location now that it looks the same as it did 40 years ago.

• I never really liked Woolco even as a kid. It seemed dirtier and crappier than either Kmart or Zellers.

  I remember well the dissapointment of Consumer's Distributing never having your item in stock. That's the store that makes me think of the Eastern Block: fill out paperwork; wait in long line; present paperwork to surly clerk; go home empty handed.