WWW.QNS.COM RIDGEWOOD TIMES JUNE 27, 2019 27
OUR NEIGHBORHOOD: THE WAY IT WAS
over Middle Village land.” The
story follows:
The Western Electric Company
has purchased a large factory and
additional land in Middle Village.
The factory is that of the Turner-
Armour Company, and the sale
included frontage on Metropolitan
Avenue worth more than $700,000.
Immediate expansion of the
Turner-Armour plant from a
production of 1,000 telephone booths
to 2,000 per month is expected,
with an increase in the number of
employees from 400. The Turner-
Armour acquisition was previously
known but the land purchases have
just been completed.
Western Electric bought the Middle
Village plant outright and leased the
other plant at 1201 Flushing Ave. in
Brooklyn for a term of years. The sale
included all the property, buildings
and machinery at Middle Village, all
patents and developments underway
and the inventories at the plants.
The plant will be known as the
Queensboro Works of the Western
Electric Company and will continue
to manufacture a new and improved
type of telephone booth.
In the 1930s, there was a baseball
field on the property, with a
backstop but no stands. On a deep
fly ball to right field, the outfielder
had to run back on the Long Island
The exterior of Rentar Plaza in Middle Village, as shown in January 2019 Photo: Mark Hallum/QNS
Rail Road tracks, keeping alert for
steam locomotives.
We are uncertain when Western
Electric Company closed the plant
in Middle Village, but we think it
was about 1965.
Enter retail
Subsequently, United Merchants
and Manufacturers Inc., a large textile
mill organization with multiple plants
in the south, acquired the property for
their Robert Hall Clothes subsidiary.
They operated a chain of clothing
stores, with their main advertising
theme being that they sold at low
prices right off the pipe racks in
their stores.
We’re certain that many of our
readers who are of the “baby boomer”
generation remember only too well
how they dreaded to hear the Robert
Hall “Back to School” jingle signaling
that the end to summer vacation was
growing near. Among the chain’s
locations were stores on Myrtle
Avenue in Ridgewood and Queens
Boulevard in Forest Hills.
In 1972 to 1974, an imposing, threestory
building was erected on the
Middle Village site with a total of 1.5
million square feet (500,000 square
feet per fl oor). Robert Hall occupied
the main fl oor. The second fl oor was
leased to Macy’s department stores
for a warehouse, and the third fl oor
was leased to the city Department
of Corrections for a training
facility. The Metropolitan Museum
of Art leased space for their mail
order operation.
Aft er several years of operating
the facility in Middle Village, United
Merchants and Manufacturers Inc.
had fi nancial diffi culties, and with
their Robert Hall subsidiary, fi led
Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Eventually,
the property in Middle Village was
sold, and the new owners established
Rentar Plaza.
Robert Hall store gave way to Times
Square Stores (TSS) and Waldbaum’s
supermarket, both of which occupied
the main fl oor along Metropolitan
Avenue through the 1980s. The TSS
was replaced by Caldor, a discount
department store that lasted into the
late 1990s before being transformed
into a Kmart.
The Waldbaum’s supermarket
moved to the bottom level of
Rentar Plaza in the late 1980s with
the opening of the Metro Mall
shopping center, which also
included a Pergament home
improvement store.
Turnover remained a constant
at Rentar Plaza and Metro Mall in
the years since. Toys R Us replaced
the Waldbaum’s supermarket on
the main level until the nationwide
toy chain fi led for bankruptcy and
closed all of its locations in early 2018.
Just months later, the Middle Village
Kmart faded into retail history, as the
department store chain consolidated
amid fi nancial troubles of its own. The
main fl oor remains empty for now.
Downstairs at Metro Mall, the
Waldbaum’s and Pergament stores
would eventually close to make way for
BJ’s Wholesale Club, which remains
as the most active retail attraction in
the complex.
This story originally ran in the Aug.
2, 2007, issue of the Ridgewood Times,
with updated information added.
* * *
If you have any remembrances or old
photographs of “Our Neighborhood:
The Way It Was” that you would
like to share with our readers,
please write to the Old Timer, c/o
Ridgewood Times, 38-15 Bell Blvd.,
Bayside, NY 11361, or send an email
to editorial@ridgewoodtimes.com.
Any print photographs mailed to
us will be carefully returned to you
upon request.
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