National Reports
PORTER, RALPH W.
NATIONAL REPORTS Suburban Drift Hits Hub Shopping Area By Ralph W Porter Boston Boston's retail shopping district has been dealt a severe blow by the announced closings of the R. H. White, E. T....
...He pointed out that Boston had lost other stores in the past without suffering any harm...
...90 days to exercise an option to build a parking garage under Boston Common...
...The same thing is happening in other cities with tax rates half that of Boston's, he said...
...And Louis Plotkin said his personal view was that Plotkin's would return to Boston once conditions have improved for retail business in the city...
...But he said City Stores still would have put an additional $2 million into White's if other means of relief had been obtained...
...Civic and business leaders have advocated, instead of an under-Common garage, that the city take some dispensable property on Tremont Street for an off-street mechanical parking garage...
...He emphasized that even this downward revision would have to be temporary because "any permanent reduction in assessed values in the downtown area of the city might well result in the necessity of making similar reductions on all properties in the shopping and business area of the city...
...Off-street parking is still a prime consideration...
...All three have been considered mainstays in the downtown area, White's for 104 years, Slattery's for 90, and Plotkin's for 48...
...It is feared that their departure from the retail scene will mean a net loss to the shopping area as a whole...
...Speaking editorially on June 17, the Boston Herald said: "The loss of these venerable commercial enterprises is a tragedy not only for thousands of workers and customers, but also for the community as a whole...
...Such an eventuality could mean absolute bankruptcy for the city government...
...The Mayor was willing to grant a one-third reduction...
...Other remedies suggested have been construction of small 100-ear garages scattered around the city instead of the large structures now under way...
...Mayor John B. Hynes said the company also asked the city of Boston for a 50-per-cent slash in its total real-estate assessment of $4 million...
...Employe representatives say the company asked them to take a 15-per-cent pay cut but that this was rejected...
...Their going, as White's President J. Benson Saks noted, creates "a dangerous void' in the heart of the downtown business district...
...It was regarded as significant that, while announcing the closing of its Boston store, White's declared that its store in Worcester would be enlarged and two others would be opened in the outlying area of Greater Boston in the near future...
...What Boston needs, of course, and what Boston business needs, is an assessment policy which is reasonable and stable for everybody...
...Without them to help attract customers to the downtown area, the already heavy tide to shopping centers on the city's periphery will probably be increased...
...He ascribed the moves largely to changing shopping habits, traffic congestion and parking problems...
...That is an essential ingredient of a Competitive tax climate.' But the politicians have not been willing to face it...
...NATIONAL REPORTS Suburban Drift Hits Hub Shopping Area By Ralph W Porter Boston Boston's retail shopping district has been dealt a severe blow by the announced closings of the R. H. White, E. T. Slattery, and Plotkin Bros, stores...
...the provision of more off-street parking lots at terminal stations of the Metropolitan Transit Authority, and conversion of Tremont Street to two-way traffic again...
...High taxes, poor parking facilities and intense competition from suburban centers were given as the principal reason for the triple crash...
...Greenfield noted that White's lost a million dollars last year and several million dollars in the past 10 years...
...Mayor Hynes has given the Boston Common Garage, Inc...
...Albert M. Greenfield, president of City Stores Company, the R. H. White parent company, declared that the broadest and most imaginative cooperation is needed to solve the far-reaching problems of downtown redevelopment now facing Boston and other great American cities...
...The Mayor belittled the importance of the city's high tax rates as one of the reasons that led to the store closings...
...Starkly confronting the city is the question of what can be done to help other stores known to be operating on thin ice...
...It is symptomatic of a sickness in the city which must be cured soon if it is not to prove fatal...
Vol. 40 • July 1957 • No. 29
