Foley’s Downtown at 1110 Main in Houston opened on October 20, 1947.
The closing of Macy’s Department Store downtown is the final nail in the door of an era that got hammered shut a long time ago. The place wasn’t even Macy’s back in the day. It was Foley’s, a department store started on Main Street in 1900 by James and Pat Foley, and one that grew under corporate ownership in the 1940s to build and add the current site of the store at 1110 Main Street in 1947. It was Foley’s until 2006, when it was re-branded under new major ownership as Macy’s.
When the new Foley’s opened on October 20, 1947, Sears on South Main, smaller and away from downtown, was the only other store in Houston that offered its range of products and services.
Downtown was centrally important to Houston shoppers in the immediate post-World War II era. There were no shopping malls in 1947 and most people lived within ten miles of downtown. The first of its kind, Gulfgate Mall, would not open until 1956 – and it only got there because of the new Gulf Freeway (today’s I-45 S from downtown) that opened in 1948, the year following the start of the big Foley’s store downtown.
So, there was a premium period for downtown Houston shopping at Foley’s that ran roughly from its big store opening in 1947 to the fuller expansion of suburban freeways and malls by 1962. By 1962, Sharpstown Mall was up and running as Houston’s population was growing west and southwest and moving away from the old town center. By 1965, the Katy Freeway was up and running and Memorial City Mall and others were handling much of the western consumer shopping attraction.
By 1970, for sure, Foley’s downtown and downtown in general were hurting, but this isn’t an article on the failed effort to revitalize the area by resurrecting Market Square as an entertainment area in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Those who ventured downtown for the fun were soon enough put off by the dangers of criminal assault in the area as well as the inconvenience and risk of driving back to the suburbs under the influence.
Market Square failed. The movie theaters moved out. The musical art and dramatic theater programs improved, but there still wasn’t a significant consumer population living in the area to support downtown as a shopping area. The 21st century movement of baseball, basketball, and soccer to downtown in the form of new venues seems to have helped some, but competitive efforts in places like Sugar Land, Town and Country, and The Woodlands make it doubtful that downtown will ever again be the shopping mecca it once was.
Goodbye, Foley’s, We know you’re really the guy behind the Macy’s mask.
The Pecan Park Eagle 
January 5, 2013 at 3:10 pm |
When I saw the artilce in yesterday’s Chronicle I was hoping you’d do one on this Grande Dame. I’ll bet 90% of your Houston readers have fond memories of this place. In the late 50’s and early 60″s my parents would take us at least 2 Saturdays every month to Foley’s, something we kids anticipated. We always had lunch before and after shopping at Steve’s BBQ tucked under the parking garage. I always had the sliced briskit with sweet relish. Don’t know why. I don’t eat sweet relish on my ‘que no more. My sister and I would hit the 7th floor (how’s that for memory?) to the books and stamps. At the time I collected stamps in between Little League and F.U.N. football and Foley’s had the best stamp department of which I was aware. The book selection was pretty good, at least up to 1968.
The summer of ’68 I had a gopher job for Judge Benjamin T. Woodall, Court of Domestic Relations #4 in the old courthouse. I’d go to the Foley’s bookstore every day at lunch.The job was arranged between Kiwanis (of which he was a member) and the Westbury High School Key Club (of which I was a member). Judge Woodall was the classic stone faced judge, stern but gentle, always with the kids in his mind first and foremost. I remember one nasty case, the courthouse was abuzz because the attorneys representing the young couple being divorced were Percy Foreman and Frank Briscoe. Big bucks, all inherited. Foreman and Briscoe, representing their clients, droned on incessently about this power boat, this car, this jewelry, this stock, etc. etc. Big theatrics. Finally Woodall interrupted them, “I haven’t heard anything about the two kids. Who wants them?” The couple looked at him sheepishly.
“Are the grandparents in this courtroom?” asked Woodall. Two of them actually were.
“I’m awarding temporary custody of the children to you until we resolve this case and I’m satisfied with who can raise them properly. I warn you, you’d better do a better job with these two then you did with their parents.”
Foreman and Briscoe cut out the theatrics. The room got real quiet.
God Bless Benjamin T. Woodall….my Atticus Finch.
January 5, 2013 at 5:42 pm |
Wayne, what a great reminiscence of the Foley’s era! Anytime you want to write a guest column on anything for The Pecan Park Eagle, just let me know.
My major memories of Foley’s are these: (1) During my freshman year at St. Thomas HS I took the Lawndale 7400 bus to town from the east end to catch the Taft 6000 on the Travis Street side of Foley’s; and (2) during the summer of that same freshman year, I ordered a red and white Ricky Cunningham-type jacket from Foley’s, paying also from my summer job for the store to put an eagle logo on the heart side of the thing. The jacket was supposed to be ready in time for the start of school, but did not arrive until the middle of October. Before it finally came in, I wrote Foley’s a letter, threatening to help put them out of business by going public with my story and also by never buying another thing from their store.
Yep. I was 14 and I had a lot of growing up to do.
January 6, 2013 at 1:02 am |
When my next-door neighbor pal Tim and I were kids, old enough to ride the bus downtown, when we weren’t going to the movies at the Metropolitan or the Loew’s State, Foley’s was the destination of choice. (This was sometime in the ’60’s.) We liked to ride the escalators. The one going up and the one going down had an opening between them about halfway up through which the escalator passengers could see each other at close range. As we went up, there would be people going down passing right next to us, their hands resting on the black thing on which you put your hand while on an escalator. We got the bright idea to slap people’s hands. It startled the heck out of them, but then we were already gone, going up laughing our heads off while they went on down. That was our idea of fun! On a boring Saturday afternoon, we’d say “Let’s go downtown and slap hands.” I wonder if any other kids ever got this bright idea! Anyway, that is my memory of Foley’s.
January 6, 2013 at 6:59 pm |
That’s hilarious Peter. I was just old enough to ride the bus with my buddies (from our home in Westbury) when we moved to Houston in 1961. We made that trek downtown to see movies at the Metropolitan and Loews theaters. (I guess there weren’t any suburban theaters back then.) I remember eagerly looking for the arrival of the much ballyhooed movie, “Safe At Home”, starring Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris, only it never hit a major theater. I saw that it was playing at The Trail Drive-In theater, but my parents were long past the days of bundling us into the car for a drive-in movie, and I wasn’t driving yet in those days. (I also don’t think that movie would have been on their “Gotta See” list.) But when we went downtown to see a movie, we definitely would take in a visit to Foley’s. We tried Sakowitz across the street, also, but it just didn’t have the allure for post-pubescent boys that Foley’s had. I can remember getting Joe Morgan’s autograph on a photo of him at Foley’s downtown. Not too long ago, former Foley’s executive Lasker Meyer wrote a history of Foley’s and was selling and autographing his book at a table inside the Weslayan-Richmond Costco store. I bought a copy from him. It’s too bad that Houston’s central business district doesn’t draw the kind of shopping traffic that can be found readily in Manhattan or London. New York is a unique place. I imagine that building will be torn down to make way for another skyscraper, or maybe a parking garage.
January 6, 2013 at 10:22 pm |
Howdy, Mark, I DID see “Safe at Home” in the theater. I cannot remember which theater, though, and it is possible I saw it while in Austin visiting my cousins during the summer. The only way to check it I can think of would be the microfilms of Houston newspapers down at the downtown library, and look over the movie pages for 1962!Thanks for the good stuff on Foley’s!
January 9, 2013 at 4:21 pm |
Not to worry Peter. I finally saw the movie in the 1990s. I was in Manhattan and went with my family to eat at Mickey Mantle’s restaurant on Central Park. There was a small kiosk in the restaurant selling baseball stuff, and I bought two movies: Safe at Home, and Rawhide, starring Lou Gehrig. Made my day.