Gertz was a New York-based

department store A department store is a retail establishment offering a wide range of consumer goods in different areas of the store, each area ("department") specializing in a product category. In modern major cities, the department store made a dramatic app ...

, headquartered in

Jamaica, Queens Jamaica is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Queens. It is mainly composed of a large commercial and retail area, though part of the neighborhood is also residential. Jamaica is bordered by Hollis to the east; St. Albans, Springfi ...

. Founded in 1918 by Benjamin Gertz, along with his five sons, the company was acquired by

Allied Stores Allied Stores was a department store chain in the United States. It was founded in the 1930s as part of a general consolidation in the retail sector by B. E. Puckett. See also Associated Dry Goods. It was the successor to Hahn's Department Store ...

in 1941. Gertz had branch stores in Douglaston,

Flushing Flushing may refer to: Places * Flushing, Cornwall, a village in the United Kingdom * Flushing, Queens, New York City ** Flushing Bay, a bay off the north shore of Queens ** Flushing Chinatown (法拉盛華埠), a community in Queens ** Flushing ...

Great Neck Great Neck is a region on Long Island, New York, that covers a peninsula on the North Shore and includes nine villages, among them Great Neck, Great Neck Estates, Great Neck Plaza, Kings Point, and Russell Gardens, and a number of unincor ...

, Hicksville,

Massapequa Massapequa (, ) is a hamlet and census-designated place (CDP) in the Town of Oyster Bay in Nassau County, on the South Shore of Long Island, in New York, United States. It is considered the anchor community of the Greater Massapequa area. The po ...

Bay Shore Bay Shore is a hamlet and census-designated place (CDP) in the Town of Islip, New York, United States. It is situated on the South Shore of Long Island, adjoining the Great South Bay. The population of the CDP was 29,244 at the time of the 2020 ...

, Lake Grove, and East Hampton. The 300,000 square foot Hicksville location was opened in 1956 in the Mid-Island Plaza, known today as Broadway Commons; that store would eventually become Sterns in 1983, followed by Macy's in 2001. Currently the building is vacant as of Macy's closing in the spring of 2020. In 1981, Gertz opened at two former Korvette's locations in Douglaston and Lake Grove, but that year, changing demographics caused the company's first store closure, its flagship Jamaica location. Later, the Bay Shore location was converted to a

Stern's Stern's (originally Stern Brothers) was a regional department store chain serving the U.S. states of New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. The chain was in business for more than 130 years. In 2001, Stern's parent company Federated Departmen ...

and then a

Macy's Macy's (originally R. H. Macy & Co.) is an American chain of high-end department stores founded in 1858 by Rowland Hussey Macy. It became a division of the Cincinnati-based Federated Department Stores in 1994, through which it is affiliated wi ...

. After Macy's closed the location, the building was demolished and a

Lowe's Lowe's Companies, Inc. (), often shortened to Lowe's, is an American retail company specializing in home improvement. Headquartered in Mooresville, North Carolina, the company operates a chain of retail stores in the United States and Canada. A ...

was built on the site.

References

{{commonscat, Gertz (department store) 1918 establishments in New York City Retail buildings in New York (state) Retail companies established in 1918 1982 disestablishments in New York (state) Retail companies disestablished in 1982