Building 19
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- The correct title of this article is Building #19. The substitution or omission of a # sign is because of technical restrictions.
Building #19 is a chain of discount stores in New England. The main Building #19 store is located in Weymouth, Massachusetts; other stores have a vulgar fraction appended to their name (such as Building 19 1/2, in Burlington or Building #19 3/4, in Norwood). The original Building #19 was located at the former naval shipyard in Hingham, MA, where the buildings were numbered, and the store retained the nondescript name on the building rather than pay for a new sign. In the 1980s, the original Building #19 moved to the Harborlight Mall in adjacent Weymouth. From Harborlight they moved back to Hingham, to the former GEM (Government Employee Merchandise) building on Derby Street. The main store is currently situated back in Weymouth at the old Caldor/Zayre's/Ames building on Route 18.
The store is well-known throughout New England for selling items at drastically discounted prices, although the items are often damaged in some way. The store capitalizes on the hardships of other retailers, obtaining most of its merchandise from fire sales, overstocks, customs seizures, liquidations, and bankruptcy courts. It also sells food, some of which has gone slightly past its expiration date.
Each Building #19 location offers free coffee with "free fake cream." Signs near the free coffee stand warn customers not to make fun of the poor quality of the coffee, because "someday you'll be old and weak too."
Building #19 is locally famous for its bizarre advertisements by cartoonist Mat Brown and in-store artwork, most of which feature silly cartoon representations of the store's founder, Jerry Ellis.
When pronouncing the name of the store, one does not pronounce the pound sign, although it is always written.
Building #19 is infamous throughout New England for buying out old locations of department stores that went out of business due to pressure from the trend of Wal-Mart and Target. Ironically, as of 2006 it is reported that Wal-Mart is trying to push Building #19 out of their Nashua, New Hampshire location as they see Building 19 as slight competition. It should also be noted that the size of the Building #19 in Nashua would approximately be large enough for a Wal-Mart Supercenter.
In 2002, Building #19 bought out Spag's and turned it into Spag's 19, but that wasn't profitable, so in 2004 Spag's 19 became just another Building #19.
Mottos and catchphrases: "Good Stuff Cheap," "Suffer a Little, Save a Lot." Their price guarantee awards a bottle of "Chateau Cheapo" champagne if a competitor beats their price.
Movie reference: The character played by Burt Reynolds furnishes his entire new apartment in one trip to Building #19 in the movie Starting Over (1979).
[edit] In the news
In 2006, Building 19 put a cartoon in their President's Day advertising flyer showing A-shirts labeled as being "Wife-Beater" shirts. Building 19 was promptly criticized and its management (and Mat Brown, the cartoonist who drew the ad) later apologized.
