If you are of a certain age and grew up in New England, chances are this retailer brings back a lot of fond memories. Pronounced Leach-mere with a hard “e” on the first syllable; I purchased my first 10-speed bike, stereo and practically everything else at Lechmere.
According to Wikipedia, the chain which started in Cambridge in 1913 finally closed in the late 1990s.
BosGuy 
Richard is right, but the Cohen family who started the store sold it in the late seventies to Dayton Hudson, though one of the sons continued to work there. That company eventually sold it to a group of investors who later sold it to Montgomery Ward. I worked for Lechmere in the early eighties, at their Woburn headquarters, during the time George Scala was working to create an identity for the store that would meet changing times. During the final store closings, I went into the Danvers store and bought myself the nicest watch I could afford as a momento of the place. It’s still my favorite watch.
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I think Montgomery Ward bought them out in the mid 90s.
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always wondered why that stop on the Green Line was called Lechmere.
And Macy’s also killed the Kaufmann’s brand in Pittsburgh (named after the Kaufmann family and Edgar J. Kaufmann – the man who commissioned Frank Lloyd Wright to build Fallingwater)
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Great post… I really like small, regional company stores like this one was. Although there are few-to-none around anymore …thanks to being gobbled up by behemoths like Macy’s, for example. Thanks to Macy’s… no more Jordan Marsh (Boston), Hudson’s (Michigan), Burdine’s (Florida), Marshall Field’s (Chicago), Bullock’s, The Broadway, JW Robinson’s (all of Southern California)… and a host of others. It may be prograss and the march of time, but I miss these shopping institutions.
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The mothership was where the Cambridgeside Galleria Best Buy is. That used to be the only reason to go to East Cambridge.
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do you know what mall the photo is from?
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The photo is tagged Framingham / Natick
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