Read's Department Stores

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Read's Department Stores was the name of a Bridgeport, Connecticut-based retail chain founded in 1856 by D.M. Read. Known for its classy, upscale merchandise, it was once hailed as New England's largest department store. Its flagship store at Broad and John Streets in downtown Bridgeport had over 100,000 square feet of selling area on five floors. D.M. Read remained an independent store until 1926, when it became a unit of Allied Stores (now a component of Federated Department Stores). Subsequently, Allied shortened the name of D.M. Read Department Store to its current name.

Allied had expanded the store into a chain in the 1950s and 1960s. By then they were up to six stores in Fairfield and New Haven Counties in Connecticut.

In 1985 Allied decided to move out of their flagship store and into space once occupied by Gimbel's inside of the Lafayette Plaza Mall. About that time, its television and radio commercials featured the jingle, "Reads, Your Something Special Store".

Read's went on in Bridgeport until 1987 when Read's was absorbed into another one of Allied's retail chains, Jordan Marsh. All of the stores subsequently took on the Jordan Marsh name. Since then, Jordan Marsh stores have been transformed into Macy's stores. The Lafayette Plaza store closed in 1989.

Of the five original D.M. Read stores, only one remained open by 1992. At that time, the Trumbull store was a part of the Abraham & Strauss chain, which later merged with Macy's (in 1995) and assumed the latter's name.