1. The beginnings: markets and small merchants, 1790s–1850s

Paterson’s commercial history began almost simultaneously with its industrial development.

When Alexander Hamilton and the Society for Establishing Useful Manufactures selected the Great Falls in 1792 as the site for an industrial community, the intention was to create more than factories. The developing town required stores, markets, craftsmen, taverns, boarding houses, and services for workers and residents. The raceway system and mills eventually made Paterson an important manufacturing center.

Early retail was consequently concentrated around the growing downtown and transportation routes. Merchants supplied the city’s workers and manufacturers with:

• Food and groceries
• Clothing
• Hardware
• Shoes and boots
• Furniture
• Medicines
• Household goods
• Tools and industrial supplies
• Dry goods

As Paterson’s population expanded during the 19th century, retail became increasingly sophisticated.

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2. The rise of Main Street and Market Street

By the middle and late 19th century, Main Street and Market Street had become the heart of Paterson’s commercial district.

The New Jersey Historic Preservation Office identifies the Downtown Commercial Historic District as containing 211 contributing buildings, with a period of significance from 1850 to 1935. The buildings reflect the extraordinary growth of commercial Paterson during this period.

Retail was not limited to large stores. Downtown contained an enormous variety of independent businesses:

Main Street

• Clothing stores
• Dry-goods merchants
• Jewelers
• Furniture stores
• Restaurants
• Shoe stores
• Drugstores
• Specialty shops

Market Street

• Grocers
• Clothing merchants
• Household goods
• Specialty businesses
• Financial institutions
• Restaurants and entertainment

Broadway and surrounding streets

• Neighborhood stores
• General merchandise
• Furniture
• Food merchants
• Service businesses

An excellent surviving example is a 1915 photograph of Federbush’s general store on Broadway, which sold appliances and a wide variety of supplies. Another photograph documents Jewish-owned shops on Main Street around Van Houten Street in 1920.

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3. Immigration created a new retail economy

One of the most important aspects of Paterson retail history is the relationship between immigration and entrepreneurship.

Paterson attracted immigrants from many parts of Europe because of its textile and manufacturing industries. Some immigrants initially worked in factories, while others became merchants.

The Jewish immigrant community provides a particularly well-documented example.

Jewish immigrants from textile centers such as Lodz, Bialystok and Odessa came to Paterson in large numbers. Some initially worked as peddlers, carrying merchandise from house to house. As they became established, many opened permanent businesses on River Street, Washington Street, Lower Main Street, Upper Main Street and Market Street.

This pattern was repeated by other immigrant communities.

Retail therefore became one of the major ways in which immigrants moved from wage labor into independent business ownership.

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4. The department-store revolution

By the late 19th century, Paterson had developed its own version of the great American department store.

Two names became especially important:

Meyer Brothers

The Meyer Brothers store became one of Paterson’s most famous retail institutions.

The brothers originally operated the Boston Store, establishing a Paterson branch in the 1880s. The business expanded dramatically as Paterson’s population and purchasing power increased.

Quackenbush

Quackenbush was another major Paterson department store. Peter Quackenbush opened his store in 1878, and the business subsequently became one of the city’s dominant retailers.

These stores represented an important transition:

Paterson was no longer merely a manufacturing town with stores. It had become a regional retail center.

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5. The Great Fire of 1902

The history of Paterson retail cannot be understood without the Great Fire of February 9, 1902.

The fire devastated the downtown commercial district. The loss list includes an extraordinary variety of businesses, including:

• Meyer Brothers Department Store
• Clothiers
• Grocers
• Furniture dealers
• Hardware stores
• Drugstores
• Jewelers
• Tailors
• Liquor dealers
• Photographers
• Confectioners
• Other merchants

The recorded loss for Meyer Brothers alone was approximately $400,000, an enormous amount for the period.

But the disaster also produced one of the most remarkable rebuilding episodes in Paterson history.

Downtown was rebuilt.

The rebuilt commercial district acquired the monumental architecture that still characterizes downtown Paterson.

The National Register documentation describes the new commercial buildings as incorporating styles such as:

• Beaux-Arts
• Romanesque Revival
• Classical Revival
• Late Gothic Revival
• Second Empire

The rebuilt Meyer Brothers store, for example, became one of the most prominent structures on Main Street.

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6. Paterson becomes a regional shopping center

The early 20th century was the golden age of downtown Paterson retail.

By the early 1920s, Paterson reportedly had approximately 3,000 retail concerns, serving customers throughout northern New Jersey. The National Register documentation specifically describes Paterson as the region’s premier retail center during this period.

That is an astonishing number.

The reason was not simply population.

Paterson was positioned at the intersection of:

• Manufacturing
• Railroads
• Streetcars
• Interurban transportation
• Bus routes
• Major roads
• A large working-class population
• A growing middle class
• Immigrant communities
• A prosperous silk industry

The enormous industrial workforce generated customers.

Paterson’s silk industry was particularly important. By the 1880s, the city was producing almost half of the silk manufactured in the United States.

Factories created wages.
Wages created consumers.
Consumers created stores.

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7. Retail and entertainment became intertwined

Downtown shopping was also a form of entertainment.

By the early 20th century, a shopping trip might include:

Shop → lunch → movie → shopping → streetcar/bus home.

The downtown contained theaters, restaurants, confectionery stores and other attractions alongside retailers.

For example, historical records document numerous early nickelodeons along Main and Market Streets, including theaters operating inside or adjacent to commercial buildings.

This created the classic American downtown experience.

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8. The department stores at their height

By the middle decades of the 20th century, several major stores were part of the Paterson shopping experience.

Among the names remembered by longtime residents are:

• Meyer Brothers
• Quackenbush
• Woolworth
• Stern’s
• Stenchever’s
• Baker’s
• Jacobs
• Tiny Tot / Teen Tots

The National Park Service’s oral-history project provides a wonderful firsthand description of downtown shopping. Bonnie Wetter Ross remembered going downtown with friends and shopping at Meyer Brothers, Quackenbush, Jacobs, Stenchever’s and other stores. She specifically remembered eating lunch at Meyer Brothers and taking the bus downtown.

Arthur Guarino similarly remembered Quackenbush, Woolworth and Meyer Brothers as major downtown stores.

These oral histories are especially valuable because they demonstrate that downtown retail was also part of the social life of Paterson.

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9. Meyer Brothers: the ultimate Paterson department store

Meyer Brothers deserves its own chapter.

At its height, the store occupied a five-story building covering an entire city block at 179 Main Street.

It eventually contained approximately 80 departments.

During the Christmas season, it employed close to 1,000 people.

Imagine what that meant to Paterson:

A teenager could get a Christmas job at Meyer Brothers.

A family could shop for clothing there.

A woman could buy household goods.

A child could visit the store’s Christmas displays.

A worker could meet friends for lunch.

And generations of Paterson residents associated the store with downtown itself.

In many ways, Meyer Brothers was to Paterson what Macy’s was to New York City—not simply a store, but an institution.

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10. World War II and the postwar period

World War II temporarily strengthened Paterson’s economy.

The city’s industrial base was heavily involved in wartime production, while population and employment remained high.

After the war, however, the fundamental structure of American retail began to change.

Americans increasingly had:

• Automobiles
• Suburban homes
• Refrigerators
• Larger household incomes
• More shopping choices

And retailers began following their customers into the suburbs.

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11. The automobile changes Paterson retail

This is probably the most important turning point in the story.

Traditional downtown shopping depended on walking, streetcars, buses and trains.

Suburban shopping depended increasingly on the automobile.

The suburban shopping center offered something downtown Paterson had difficulty matching:

Free parking immediately outside the store.

A family could drive to a suburban shopping center, park easily and shop several stores without navigating downtown traffic.

This fundamentally changed retail geography.

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12. The rise of Paramus and suburban shopping

The late 1950s were particularly important.

The opening of major shopping centers in Bergen County created a new retail competitor for Paterson.

The Bergen Mall opened in 1957, becoming one of the major suburban shopping destinations in the region.

Paterson merchants recognized the threat.

Research by historian Lizabeth Cohen documents that, as Bergen Mall and Garden State Plaza approached, Paterson merchants organized efforts to strengthen downtown shopping. Paterson created the Commercial Development Fund for Paterson’s Future, which raised $65,000 for downtown marketing and advertising.

That is an important piece of the story because it shows that the decline of downtown retail was not simply ignored.

Local merchants understood what was happening.

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13. The department stores follow the customer

The department stores themselves eventually became part of the suburbanization process.

Quackenbush was acquired by Stern’s, and the downtown Paterson department-store operation eventually disappeared.

Stern’s also expanded into suburban locations, including the emerging Willowbrook Mall in Wayne.

This illustrates the fundamental transformation:

Old model

Paterson downtown → department stores → surrounding small stores

New model

Suburban mall → department-store anchor → surrounding specialty stores

The shopping center essentially recreated the downtown retail ecosystem—but placed it around a parking lot.

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14. The decline of downtown retail

By the 1960s and 1970s, Paterson’s traditional retail dominance was weakening.

Several things occurred simultaneously:

Suburbanization

Middle-class families increasingly moved to surrounding communities.

Automobile dependence

Shoppers increasingly preferred suburban shopping centers.

Industrial decline

Paterson’s traditional manufacturing industries contracted.

Changing retail economics

National chains increasingly favored shopping centers.

Downtown physical problems

Older commercial buildings required investment and modernization.

Competition

Shopping centers in Paramus, Wayne and other suburban communities offered increasingly attractive alternatives.

This was not unique to Paterson. It was part of a nationwide transformation of American retail.

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15. The loss of the industrial consumer base

There is another important connection.

Paterson’s great retail system had been built on the prosperity generated by its factories.

But the city’s industrial economy began deteriorating.

The silk industry declined because of changing technology, foreign competition, rayon and aging mills. The National Park Service notes that the industry was already in decline by the 1930s.

Later, additional manufacturing employment disappeared.

Thus Paterson experienced a double retail problem:

Customers moved outward

while

the industrial jobs supporting downtown purchasing power disappeared.

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16. Meyer Brothers closes

One of the most symbolic moments came in 1987, when Meyer Brothers closed.

The store had been a Paterson institution for roughly a century.

The City of Paterson identifies Meyer Brothers as one of the most notable casualties of the downtown’s decline.

But the story became even more tragic four years later.

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17. The 1991 fire

On January 17, 1991, a devastating fire destroyed much of the block containing the former Meyer Brothers store.

The fire killed Paterson firefighter John Nicosia.

The destruction eliminated one of the most important physical reminders of Paterson’s golden age of retail.

The old Meyer Brothers building was demolished.

The downtown landscape was permanently altered.

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18. Retail after 1990

Paterson’s retail economy did not disappear.

Instead, it changed character.

Large traditional department stores became less important, while smaller independent businesses became increasingly significant.

The City of Paterson notes that as major-chain stores left downtown, small businesses became increasingly important, including businesses established by immigrant communities.

This is a crucial part of the modern story.

The retail history of Paterson is therefore not simply:

“Downtown declined.”

It is more accurately:

One retail system disappeared and another developed in its place.

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19. The immigrant entrepreneurship era

The modern Paterson retail economy reflects the city’s enormous immigrant diversity.

Businesses established by newer immigrant communities have transformed commercial corridors throughout the city.

Retail now includes businesses serving communities from:

• Latin America
• the Caribbean
• South Asia
• the Middle East
• North Africa
• West Africa
• South Asia
• other parts of the world

This continues an old Paterson tradition.

The Jewish, Italian, Irish, German, Polish, Syrian/Lebanese and other immigrant communities of earlier generations also used retail entrepreneurship as a means of establishing themselves economically.

In that sense, the immigrant merchant tradition never really disappeared—it changed communities.

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20. Center City Mall

One of the more recent attempts to establish a major shopping destination downtown was Center City Mall.

Center City Mall

The mall represents a very different retail concept from the old Main Street department stores.

Instead of one enormous department store surrounded by hundreds of independent storefronts, it provides an enclosed shopping environment with multiple retailers.

It opened in the 2000s as part of downtown redevelopment efforts.

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21. Retail in Paterson today

Today’s Paterson retail landscape is a mixture of several generations of retail.

Historic downtown retail

Main Street and Market Street still contain many commercial buildings constructed during Paterson’s great retail era.

The architecture itself is a surviving record of the period when Paterson was a regional shopping center.

Modern downtown retail

There are still numerous independent stores and shopping centers downtown, including:

Main Street Square

Unique Bazaar

Marshalls

Neighborhood retail

Shopping also developed outside the traditional downtown core.

For example:

Chamberlain Shopping Center

represents the neighborhood shopping-center model.

Ethnic and specialty retail

Businesses such as Nouri Brothers Shopping Center demonstrate another important component of modern Paterson—the ethnic specialty market.

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A useful timeline for your Paterson History project

The bigger historical story

For your Paterson History website, I would frame the story around five major transformations:

1. The Market Town
1790–1860 — merchants serve the growing industrial settlement.

2. The Industrial City’s Marketplace
1860–1900 — silk, locomotives and manufacturing create enormous consumer demand.

3. The Shopping Capital of Northern New Jersey
1900–1950 — Main Street, Market Street and the department stores reach their peak.

4. The Suburban Challenge
1950–1990 — automobiles, suburbanization and shopping malls pull retail away from downtown.

5. The New Paterson Marketplace
1990–present — downtown redevelopment, immigrant entrepreneurship, neighborhood shopping and specialty retail create a very different commercial city.

The most interesting conclusion is that Paterson’s retail history mirrors the entire history of American retail: the traditional marketplace → department store → automobile shopping center → suburban mall → decline of the old downtown → independent/ethnic specialty retail and mixed-use urban redevelopment.

And Paterson has an unusually rich physical record of that evolution because so many of the 1850–1935 commercial buildings survive in the Downtown Commercial Historic District.