Goodbye Rich's:

This won't mean a lot to many people, but Rich's was the Atlanta department store. It was founded by Mr. Rich, who came to Atlanta in the 1860s (he was probably a carpetbagger, but no one really talks about that). The downtown store for many years was the place where people from all over the south would come to buy clothes, eat in the tea room, and celebrate Christmas. Most of this was before my time, but I remember the downtown store (it closed about 15 years ago), with the giant Christmas tree that was lit every year as a singer hit the really high note in "O Holy Night." To this day, I can't hear that "O night divine" without making the universal tree-lighting gesture, sort of flicking both my hands out.

My favorite Rich's Christmas memory also occured at the downtown store. On the top floor, above floors of storage and offices, Rich's always created a Christmas scene, snow on the ground and trees and presents and, best of all, a little tiny train with cars shaped like a pig. The Pink Pig was so small that an adult would have his knees to his chest riding it and this scene was reached by riding up in a freight elevator that rivalled the elevators in Harper and Blackstone for pure scariness, but I was always so excited to go ride the Pink Pig. They did it a couple of times in the Lenox store, I think, but I was too old and it wasn't the same anyway.

Rich's was more than a store to Atlanta, too. It was part of the community. Everyone shopped there, of course, in the days before malls and much competition. But the store also helped out when it was necessary. During the Depression, Atlanta Public Schools ran out of money to pay the teachers, so Rich's paid them. The store took essentially worthless crops for farmers in exchange for merchandise.

Once Federated bought Rich's, it has been a long slow slide down. The downtown store closed, Rich's and Macy's began selling the exact same merchandise, and now the Rich's name will be gone in January. It is really the end for Rich's.