Posted 7:26 PM by Gene

I'm a little despondent that one of our formerly local retailers, the jeweler Caldwell's, is closing its once-flagship store in the city. (Consolation prize: it's keeping its commercial division here.) But I shouldn't be surprised. The jewelry biz has been in the doldrums for years; witness the closing of Service Merchandise and a clientele increasingly limited to middle-aged women with bad taste. And as I've said before, business was the right hook to the Je$$es' left cross in destroying our cities, with whole blocks of vacant storefronts the result. To get to my new job I travel an elevated train line through part of our ghetto, once the home of such antediluvians as "Iris's Millinery Shop" and a oculist named Fellman, now block after block of cheap furniture stores and pawn shops; the only national retailers are liberal (Viacom's Blockbuster) or vultures (Walgreen's). Businessmen just will not locate in cities. The future for the Caldwell block's a mixed bag: yes, as the hopeful local says, there are new stores there, but two are relocations (although the Borders does attract good traffic and the site it left near Rittenhouse Square is next to construction that could house a big upscale outfit), and the Woolworth's will never again be occupied. I think those ghetto storefronts are going to stay the same for a long time. Retailers can cite taxes and crime and lack of good help until hell freezes over, but I will say again and again, the real reason they won't open in cities is n...you know the word. They do.