Kmart 34th St. (Penn Station) Manhattan – Final Day. Mike Kalasnik; 2022. Library of Congress.
The last full-sized K-Mart superstore in America, located in Bridgehampton, NY, has closed. At The Wall Street Journal, Alyssa Lukpat and Suzanne Kapner explain the loss of what one local called “the only place normal people can afford to shop in the Hamptons.” They write:
BRIDGEHAMPTON, N.Y.—The Kmart store is down the road and a world away from local Chanel and Gucci outlets, a rare oasis for bargains in the Hamptons.
On Sunday, luxury goods will triumph over low prices. Kmart No. 9423, the last full-size superstore in the mainland U.S., closes its doors this weekend, ending a chapter in America’s retail story. Locals, from working stiffs to the wealthy, will mourn its passing.
“This is the only place normal people can afford to shop in the Hamptons,” said Neide Valeira, a deputy budget officer for a nearby town.
Valeira, 59 years old, and her daughter Samantha Dossantos, 25, went for maybe their final trip on a recent Saturday. They grabbed tarps from a discount bin to cover fireplace wood, as well as compost for their garden.
Since the late 1990s, the Bridgehampton Kmart commanded prime real estate, anchoring a shopping center on the sole highway in and out of the Hamptons, where the average home sales price is around $3 million.
The store was a favorite of Eddie Lampert’s, the billionaire financier who scooped up Kmart from bankruptcy in 2002 and used it to buy Sears three years later. He told former Sears executive Michael Ryan that Hamptons shoppers could afford to buy $15 folding chairs for parties and throw them away.
Ryan said buyers at other Kmart locales would likely keep them for 20 years.
At the Bridgehampton Kmart, nobodies and the noted shopped side by side. Locals told stories about spotting Kennedys, talk-show host Jimmy Fallon, even taste-connoisseur Martha Stewart. Valeira and Dossantos ran into Pelé, Brazil’s legendary soccer star.
Dr. Latisha Ellis-Williams, 50, grew up in Bridgehampton and remembers hanging out with friends in the Kmart plaza. They worked summer jobs in nearby shops, folding clothes at Gap, Nine West and Ann Taylor Loft.
Ellis-Williams, an assistant school superintendent, was visiting the Hamptons from her home in Aldie, Va., and took her husband to see the Kmart before it was gone. “He didn’t believe me that we had one all this time,” she said.
Read more here.
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