Latest news with #TheBay
CBC
7 hours ago
- Business
- CBC
Nostalgic Vancouver shoppers say farewell to The Bay on its final day
The Bay has operated at the corner of Granville and West Georgia streets in downtown Vancouver for 138 years. On Monday, groups of people waited outside the historic location for the doors to open one last time.
Calgary Herald
12 hours ago
- Business
- Calgary Herald
Leong: Hudson's Bay is dead but its aspirations can live on to help build Canada
Article content Article content Of course, much has changed in the 115 years since the publication of Bryce's book. Article content The Hudson's Bay Company managed to survive decades of colonial conflicts; a transformation from a quasi-governmental commercial monopoly to a pure business in a competitive marketplace; several global economic crises, including the Great Depression; and two world wars — somehow finding a way to adapt and meet the various challenges of the day. Article content Alas, it was the strains of retail coupled with what's been described by some as an unhealthy corporate union that eventually caused HBC to spiral into insolvency after more than three-and-a-half centuries as a going concern. Article content In 2008, The Bay was taken over by a U.S. private equity firm that might not have had the necessary desire, interest or expertise to keep the Hudson's Bay Company alive. Article content HBC had become just another company — the latest in a long line of historic department stores and retailers in Canada and the United States whose stories have come to a sudden end over the last few decades. Article content Article content In the The Bay's final hours, watching last-minute shoppers rummaging for a good liquidation deal amid the dregs of a dwindling stock of merchandise, it might have been difficult to trace the long path through the company's history to the same but very different corporate entity — The Governor and Company of Adventurers of England, trading into Hudson's Bay — that held great power and sway over North America and the course of its history. Article content The path behind might be hard to see but it's there. And so is the path forward but sadly, HBC won't be the one to navigate it. Article content Given the current political context and an uncertain trade relationship with the United States, Canadians are expressing a newfound desire for nation-building projects and interest in reconnecting with national institutions. Article content It seems fitting that HBC's and Canada's economic motivations after the company's surrender of Rupert's Land in 1870 very much mirror the rekindled current of nationalism we are experiencing now in 2025.
CTV News
a day ago
- Business
- CTV News
Last day of Hudson's Bay
Sunday marked the final day of shopping at The Bay locations across the country as Canadian shoppers score big time bargains. CTV's Natalie Van Rooy reports.
Montreal Gazette
2 days ago
- Business
- Montreal Gazette
The Bay's last days: Iconic Canadian retailer closes Sunday
By At the Hudson's Bay flagship store in downtown Montreal on Saturday, shoppers picked through the remnants of a once-iconic retailer, including heavily discounted mannequins. 'I saw them and I thought, well, this might come in useful. Don't know how,' said customer Keith Schmidt. Minutes earlier, he had dropped the mannequin on the floor, snapping off three fingers, but still paid $35 to take it home. Shelves, clothing racks and hangers were also up for grabs during the final weekend of The Bay's bankruptcy liquidation sale, as the 355-year-old retail chain prepares to close its doors for good on June 1. Hudson's Bay, founded in 1670, filed for bankruptcy in March and faces $1.1 billion in debt. The downtown Montreal location was barely recognizable as a high-end department store the day before its closing, with leaky makeup bottles strewn across countertops and shattered Christmas decorations marked up to 90 per cent off their original retail value. Near the messy countertops read a sign: 'All sales are final. No exchange or return will be accepted.' One customer was taken aback by the state of the store. 'I was very surprised to see the total emptiness,' said shopper Fanny Obadia in an interview. 'Actually, you get to see the building. I'm an architect, so I haven't seen this level of flooring at The Bay ever.' Despite the mostly empty racks and displays, hundreds of shoppers passed by the store one last time on Saturday. 'It doesn't even feel right really. It's just sad,' said lifelong Bay regular Marge Kavanagh, adding she came for the nostalgia rather than the deals. Another customer walking through a sea of mannequins, Marina B., shared the sentiment. 'I didn't come to buy anything today. I came to say goodbye to a beautiful building,' she said in an interview. 'It's a sad day.' One amateur photographer was taken by the mannequins, saying he'd come by the closing store several days in a row to photograph them. Other customers came for the deals, including Ivy Lou. 'It's amazing that they're selling everything,' Lou said after she bought a shelf for $10. 'It's my first time in my life seeing stuff like this happen.' By the end of the day Sunday, more than 8,300 Hudson's Bay employees will be out of a job. Several staff members told The Gazette they weren't comfortable speaking on the record, but said the closing has been hard. Some had worked there for decades. Geneviève Dostaler, who runs a hat company bearing her name and operates a retail concession inside The Bay, said she is grieving the department store's demise. 'I think that the saddest thing is that we are very quiet since, maybe since the pandemic,' she explained in an interview, as dozens of shoppers surrounded her, trying on linen hats and scarves. 'We were really, really not busy for years. And now, seeing the people coming just like that. Oh, my God, you're almost dying.'
Vancouver Sun
2 days ago
- Business
- Vancouver Sun
This Day in History, 2025: After 138 years in downtown Vancouver, The Bay closes
There has been a Hudson's Bay store in downtown Vancouver since Jan., 17, 1887, when the city was less than a year old. But it will end June 1, when the landmark Bay store at Granville and Georgia will close. The masses flooded into the store for The Bay's bankruptcy sale in recent weeks, either to hunt for bargains or just to take a look around at the last days of a Canadian institution. 'It's sad, honestly,' said shopper Niels Billou. 'It's an iconic part of Canadian history, part of the founding of this country. Everybody who grew up in Canada has gone and bought something from the Bay, whether it's socks or bed sheets or the blankets.' Stay on top of the latest real estate news and home design trends. By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. A welcome email is on its way. If you don't see it, please check your junk folder. The next issue of Westcoast Homes will soon be in your inbox. Please try again Interested in more newsletters? Browse here. Sharon Best remembered getting her picture taken with Santa at The Bay when she was a child. 'It's such a shame,' she said. 'It's the last of the department stores, but it's also the oldest of the department stores.' 'The High Street is dying,' said Sarah Bromfield. 'Retail is kind of dying and the internet taking over.' Bromfield picked up a bust of a female mannequin at the sale for $100. She had a lot to choose from: there were hundreds of mannequins left all over the store, with or without faces, heads, arms or legs. A quartet of male mannequins were doing handstands on the sixth floor, near a quintet of mannequins arranged like the famous photo of construction workers having lunch on a steel beam high above the streets of New York in 1932. The sixth floor was officially closed when a reporter visited Wednesday, which made it a bit eerie. The floorplates are 75,000 sq. ft., and the virtually empty space made the large building seem even more vast. The sixth floor holds one of the building's coolest features: an arched steel and glass skylight that was constructed for a restaurant in the 1920s. The skylight is above a wooden floor where tables could be removed for dancing. The chandeliers for the skylight resemble antlers, a play on The Bay's coat of arms, which features a pair of elks flanking a crest with a red cross, four beavers and a fox on top. The company motto at the bottom is 'Pro Pelle Cutem,' which translates as 'a pelt for a skin' which points to the company's fur trading roots in 1670. Alas, a trio of white moose mannequins were already sold Wednesday and awaiting pickup. There didn't seem to be any Bay blankets left, either. In fact, most of the store's stock was already sold this week — only three floors and the basement were still open. But the clothes that were left were doing a brisk business, and the jewelry department was positively rockin'. The current Bay store was developed in four stages, in 1913-14, 1925-26, 1926, and 1949-50. The distinctive cream terra cotta on the exterior was used in several Bay stores, including Winnipeg and Victoria, and became identified with the company. The first Vancouver Hudson's Bay was a small wooden building at 150 Cordova St. in Gastown. The company moved to a four-storey red brick building at 698 Granville in 1893. The Seymour and Georgia side was the first part of the current building constructed. The address is now 674 Granville. The current building is about 648,000 square feet, and has six storeys above ground, two basement levels and an attic. The main floor is 21 feet (6.4 metres) high, the second floor is 16 feet, 3 inches (5 metres) high, and the remaining floors and basement are 15 feet, 2 inches (4.6 metres). In 1946, the downtown Vancouver store employed 1,300 people in 95 departments. In recent times about 500 people were working in the store. The store sits on prime real estate, and in 2022 The Bay announced a plan to build a 12-storey glass office tower atop the current six-storey store, which would have more than doubled the building size to 1.4 million square feet. The facade of the building would have been saved in the new development, but most of the interior would have been demolished and rebuilt in the project. The glass skylight on the sixth floor was to have been taken apart and reconstructed in the new structure. But demand for office space has slumped, and the 2022 plan seems to be dead. jmackie@
