#9 - Herpolsheimer's
The downtown Herpolsheimer’s store was a fixture in Grand Rapids for decades. It originally opened in 1870 when it is located at Ottawa and Monroe. Former President Gerald Ford, a Grand Rapids native, met his wife Betty while she was working as a fashion coordinator at Herpolsheimer's. |
 It moved to the modern store building site at Division and Fulton in 1948. When the modern store opened, it was touted as one of the most lavish and technologically advanced stores of its time. It featured a multi-story display window which usually showcased a huge American flag. The store even had its own parking garage in the basement, a rather innovative concept at the time. The building included an elaborate conveyor belt system which carried packages to the parking garage. The idea was that shoppers could make purchases in various parts of the store and then pick them all up at once as they went back to their cars. |
 
The basement contained mostly clearance and discount items, but it also had a truly unique attraction for the kids -- a working, child-size monorail train suspended from the ceiling. The train made its inaugural run in 1949 as the Santa Express. It was approximately 33' long and each of its three cars held 8 smiling riders. In the 1960's during the space race the train got a new identity as the Rocket Express. In 1976 - with a coat of yellow paint and the addition of a face and glasses - it was dubbed the Caterpillar Express. It changed one last time in the 1980's as part of Mackie's World Children's Mall and wore a new jungle motif and moniker, the Dino Express. The train was entrusted to the Van Andel Museum in 2000 when the building was renovated to become the new Police Department.
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| By the 1980s, however, suburban malls had decimated downtown retail stores. In an effort to stimulate downtown shopping, the city closed off several blocks of Monroe Avenue, the main retail “strip” downtown, to create an outdoor pedestrian mall and park area, known as Monroe Mall. Herp’s stood right at the end of the outdoor mall. The city added benches, landscaping, art and fountains where the street used to be. Concerts, ice skating in the winter and other events attempted to lure people back to the heart of the city. |
Around 1985, Herp’s and a development group unveiled a plan to use their downtown store as the anchor of a new, indoor downtown mall. A smaller, leaner Herp’s would occupy part of the building; the rest of the building, along with the adjacent Gantos building, would be converted into mall space. City planners hoped the mall would draw shoppers away from the suburbs and revitalize downtown shopping. |
The plan sparked outcry from historic preservationists, as the historic Gantos building would be gutted inside and out to become an atrium and retail space, obliterating all historic elements of its architecture. In addition, a new two-story skywalk would connect the mall with a parking garage across the street, blocking a classic scenic vista as drivers approached downtown. |
The plans proceeded over these objections. Herp’s temporarily consolidated the entire store into the basement while the renovation took place above. The Gantos building was destroyed; and the ugly skywalk went up. The exposed girders of the skywalk formed an “M” design which happened to be the architect’s first initial. Was this a coincidence or a subtle monument to himself? The Herpolsheimer building fared better; the exterior retained most of its original appearance. Herp’s also elected to return to the full Herpolsheimer’s name, in the belief that the longer name sounded more upscale. |
Around 1986 the new mall, named City Center, opened amid great fanfare. Styled in the aqua and pink of the “Miami Vice” look which was all the rage at the time, the mall looked shiny and new but lacked any real character. Herpolsheimer’s returned to the upper floors of its building, and the basement became a food court. The overhead train remained in place and continued to operate. Most of the stores along the outdoor Monroe “Mall” relocated to City Center, leaving the Monroe Avenue pedestrian mall a barren wasteland of vacant storefronts. |
In the 1990s Herpolsheimer’s was acquired by the Lazarus department store chain and adopted the Lazarus name. This company later became part of Macy’s operated as Lazarus-Macy’s until 2006, when Macy's converted all of its stores to the Macy's name. City Center never really took off and never gave the suburban malls any serious competition. Why this concept failed in Grand Rapids when it worked so well in other cities is a matter of speculation. What is certain is that around 1992 City Center closed its doors, and the city essentially gave up on downtown retail. The Monroe Avenue pedestrian mall was torn out and the street reopened to cars. |
In a rather unusual retrofit, the Grand Rapids Police Department took over the City Center building and made it into a new police headquarters. The police dropped the now-outdated Miami Vice look and remodeled it to resemble a generic office building. The eyesore skywalk came down. Today the Herpolsheimer’s building still stands but carries few traces of its original appearance. One can still see evidence of the large display window. |
 The producers of The Polar Express researched period photographs to create a movie version of Herpolshiemer’s reasonably similar to the original. Today, Herpolsheimer’s, Monroe Mall, and City Center are all gone with only the slightest traces remaining. But thanks to The Polar Express, memories of Herpolsheimer’s will live on for years to come. |
| Thanks to Robert Gillespie’s Blog “The History of Herpolsheimer’s / Herp’s” for much of this information. Information on the train came from Updates from the Curatorial Staff by Marilyn Merdzinski |