FROM the Rockaway Times Facebook page comes this image of the classic red with gold lettering F.W. Woolworth sign, after previous tenants’ signs (Edwina’s Little Angels Daycare and Job Lots) were removed at #192 Beach 116th Street south of Rockaway Beach Boulevard. The “five and dime store” used this style from the early to late 20th Century.
Frank Winfield Woolworth (1852-1919) originated the concept of the “five and dime store” in which goods were purchased from manufacturers and sold at a fixed price (Macy’s was an early convert to this method; previously, buyer and seller bargained as to what price will be paid, a practice still adhered to in other places around the world). The first Woolworth’s opened in Utica, NY in 1879, but failed soon after. Frank Woolworth and brother Charles Sumner Woolworth were undeterred and opened a second store in Lancaster, PA. The business expanded and thrived, becoming one of the largest retail chains in the world. Nothing lasts forever, and Woolworth’s folded in 1997 and became Foot Locker, concentrating on sports goods. Foot Locker was in turn acquired by Dick’s Sporting Goods in 2025.
My experience with Woolworth’s is pretty much limited to my childhood. My local “W” was on the prime corner of 5th Avenue and 86th Street (seen here in a Municipal Archives tax photo in the fab 40s), across from a police precinct that subsequently gave way to municipal parking. As a kid, I would get a once monthly haircut from a barber on 4th Avenue and 86th (I still remember his pull chain toilet) and as a reward for behaving, my grandmother or mother would bring me into Woolworth for something cheap; I remember getting the Colorforms stickers sold there.
A second tax photo shows a Rockaway Park location nearby in 1940, with a previous sign. The second sign in the same style shows “F.W. Woolworth” alone.
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3/4/26