Building 19, a chain of discount stores in New England, was one of those places that people either seemed to really love or really hate. The brainchild of Gerald Elovitz, aka “Jerry Ellis”, the Building 19 empire began as a single store in Hingham, Massachusetts. During its fifty-year run, from 1963 to 2013 the chain specialized in offering “good things cheap”, most often leftover stock from name-brand retailers. Jerry Ellis even made it a part of his business model to track warehouse fires, in order to buy bulk stock at pennies on the dollar.
Nearly every New Englander “of a certain age” probably has their own Building 19 story, but my part about this chain, even more than the subtle, lingering smell of smoke you’d sometimes catch when visiting the stores, was their print advertisements. Each week the Building 19 flyer was a staple of the Sunday newspaper (remember those?), and their hilarious ads always poked fun at Jerry Ellis’ legendary…. um, “thrift.”
Sadly, Building 19 went the way of many retail giants. Done in by increased manufacturing overseas, the rise of online shopping, and improved fire safety measures in warehouses, Building 19 finally ended its downhill slide by declaring bankruptcy in 2013. And even though Jerry Ellis passed away in 2017, his name is firmly engraved in history as another New England legend.