Bye-bye, Basement.
Damn. My style icon, Aunty Margaret, took the train to Filene’s Basement every Saturday until she was too old to do so. Now it’s closing.
Sylvia Amenta, a Filenes Basement employee for more than 60 years, received a standing ovation. She began as a cashier in 1946, worked her way up to manager, and now does shipping and customer service.
“I’m going to miss it,” she said, her voice quavering, then trailing off as she broke down in tears.
Many of the employees clutched mementos from happier days, when the store’s future had seemed assured. One keepsake, a World War II-era brochure, touted the Basement’s “remarkable blend of utility and oddity” and compared the “merchandising Mecca” to a combination of “a county carnival, a church strawberry social, and a giant treasure hunt.”
Edward A. Filene founded Filene’s Basement in 1908 as a way to sell excess merchandise from his father’s department store upstairs. The Basement now operates as a separate company.
