Boston Discount Drug Moves – October 1972

Fifty years ago, Downtown Lorain was going through its major transition, courtesy of urban renewal. That meant that buildings were going to be torn down, and some businesses would have to find new homes.

One of them was Boston Discount Drug store, shown below in a photo that appeared in the Journal back on October 25, 1972. As the photo caption notes, "Boston Discount Drug store, now mostly installed in its new location at 129 Fourth St., Lorain, will celebrate a grand re-opening sometime in November.

"The move was triggered by urban renewal after 12 years in the same location at the corner of Fourth and Broadway.

"The Boston store is the first discount drug store in Lorain. It is owned by Cook-United who also owns Ontario stores in this area."

I've written about Boston Discount Drug before (here).

There are probably very few people that actually remember this store, which was located next to Ted Jacobs. The only reason I do is because you could see this store from the window of Alex Visci's music studio at 356 Broadway, where my brothers and I took our trumpet lessons on Saturday. mornings. While one brother was having his lesson in another room, I remember sitting on a stool in the front room of the studio (where Mr. Visci repaired instruments) and looking out the window, watching the action on Fourth Street. Eventually, Mr. Visci had to move his business to a location above Faroh's on Broadway, when his building was torn down.

Today the building at 129 Fourth Street is part of Spectrum Consulting Services.

A Tale of Two Boston Stores

I’ve written several posts about Smith and Gerhart, the well-remembered Lorain store that was a mainstay in Downtown Lorain until it closed in 1980. As I noted before, when the store opened in 1893 it was originally known as the Boston Store.

Here's an ad from the early days of the firm. It appeared in the Lorain Times-Herald on May 16, 1901. Note that the names of the men behind the firm appear at the bottom of the ad.

By 1927, the firm had changed its name to Smith and Gerhart. The Boston Store name still appeared in the ads for a time, but it was severely downplayed. Here's an ad (below) that ran in the Lorain Times-Herald on August 26, 1927.

Well, did you know (or remember) that much later there was another store in Downtown Lorain that also had the Boston name?

From a January 1, 1968 ad in the Lorain Journal

Boston Vitamin & Cosmetic Distributors (later shortened to Boston’s Discount Centers) first showed up in the Lorain City Directory around the time of the 1962 edition. It was a drug store offering discount prescriptions located at 362 Broadway.

Courtesy Lorain Historical Society

The store later moved to 129 Fourth Street in the early 1970s.

I remembered the Boston’s store from my family’s weekly visits to Downtown Lorain each Saturday morning for trumpet lessons with Mr. Visci. I could see the store on Fourth Street (next to Ted Jacob's) from the upstairs window of Mr. Visci's studio at 356 Broadway.

Boston's continued to appear in the city directory until its listing disappeared in the 1975 edition.

From a December 19, 1963 ad in the Lorain Journal

Boston Drug Store Ad - Feb. 2, 1972

I’ve written before (here) about how Downtown Lorain had two separate stores with the ‘Boston’ name. One was Smith and Gerhart, which started out in 1893 originally known as The Boston Store, before switching to its more well-known monicker in the 1920s. 

The other store was Boston Drug, a drug store/vitamin store that first appeared in the early 1960s at 362 Broadway. It eventually moving to Fourth Street in the early 1970s (which is where I remembered it) and became more of a discount store.

And here’s an ad for that store that appeared in the Lorain Journal on Feb. 2, 1972 – fifty years ago this month. As you can see, it was still mainly promoting vitamins in its ads.

The inclusion of Chocks in the ad caught my attention. 

What were Chocks? Ah, I guess you’d have to be a Baby Boomer to remember them.

Chocks Vitamins was an early attempt at a daily vitamin for kids. My mother bought them for my siblings and me for a while. I can still remember the chalky taste.

Here’s a great photo of the Chocks bottle (one featuring Charlie Chocks), courtesy of Todd Franklin and his Flickr page.

And here’s an early version, courtesy of Pinterest.

Chocks seemed to have the market to itself for while. Eventually, however, Flintstone Vitamins (introduced in the late 1960s) became popular and, consequently, the de facto vitamin for kids. 

As a result, Chocks disappeared. Now nobody remembers them except aging Baby Boomers (like me) who might think of them as they pop a variety of bad-tasting vitamins.

Muir's 1-Cent Sale Ad – October 1, 1953

Drug stores – including the ones that are no longer around – have been a recurring topic on this blog.

In our area, there seems to be one located at every major intersection, whether it's Drug Mart, Rite Aid, Walgreens or CVS. I'm still partial to Drug Mart; that's where I get my prescriptions, and I shop there practically every day. The others? I've never warmed up to them, even though they've been around a long time.

But we all remember the stores that are no longer around, including the big chains like Revco, Cunningham's, and Gray Drug, as well as the little ones like Boston Drug Store in Downtown Lorain. And of course, the independent pharmacies such as Whalen Drug and National Pharmacy kindle the fondest memories of all.

One of the regional chains that I've written about several times is Muir's. It started out as a drug store but eventually evolved into more of a discount store.

The branch in Lorain on Broadway was actually the 'original parent unit' of the 30-store, which was based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. And here is an almost full-page ad for the store that ran in the Lorain Journal back on October 1, 1953.

Front and center is the store's mascot, the Thrifty Scot. (Back then it wasn't politically incorrect yet to depict Scotsmen as notorious cheapskates.)

It's an odd ad. If you look closely at the products on sale, you'll have a hard time finding any recognizable brands. Instead, you find weird ones like Dewey Nose Drops, Lady Fair Cleansing Cream, Q-Wick Room Deodorant, Spotoff Cleaner and Baby Bunting Baby Powder.

Speaking of Baby Bunting, it's one of the few items that I was able to find an image of. Here's a container of it.

A look at the back of the can possibly reveals how it came to be included in the Muirs portfolio of products: the company that manufactured it – Dewey Products Co. – was located in Grand Rapids. 

I guess they produced the Dewey Nose Drops in the ad as well. (Somehow that name make me think of a drippy nose.)

I was also able to find a package of Smiles Blades that somehow survived. That illustration of the beaming, clean-shaven guy is great.

But seeing how the hirsute look is in, and facial fuzz is the norm, I imagine that razor blade sales are fairly dull these days.

****

You can see a 1949 Muirs ad here (the post also mentions Jungle Larry, who was the manager of the store), and read about the 1964 closing of the Lorain store back here;