Empty Basement

Perhaps by now you've seen/read/heard the news that Filene's Basement is filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, for the third time in a decade or so. But this time it's permanent; all stores will close by January 2012, and parent company Syms will be shutting down along with the Basement.

This is sad to hear for anyone who has spent time searching for treasure in the Basement (and by that I of course mean the real one, the original Downtown Crossing store) over the years, especially for people who are, say, at least 40. When I arrived here 30 years ago to start college, I was already familiar with the ways and wonders of the Basement, including the famous automatic markdown plan. My mother used to take a bus to Boston for shopping day trips with a friend, and eventually I got to go along. I don't remember if I ended up buying anything or not, but by the time I got here as a college freshman, I knew the Basement was a key source for great deals.

I have great memories of hopping on the subway and heading downtown to shop at the Basement, both alone and with friends. Back when I was a student in the first half of the 1980s, I used to get stuff like Brooks Brothers shirts, Italian-made corduroy pants from Louis Boston, and Shetland wool sweaters from England. And the suit department was a joy to behold: the suits came from the best stores and were made of the best fabrics. I bought suits from the Basement to attend at least a couple of weddings.

Finding an item that had survived long enough to hit the Basement's 50% markdown was a point of pride, and of course that 50% was off the original Basement price, which was already significantly less than what it had sold for (or at least had been priced at) farther back in its history. At one point in my post-college years, I scored a $500 suit (which would be at least a $1000 suit today) for $125. It still had its price tag from Saks attached.

Back then, there was hardly any competition in the off-price corner of the retail business, but that soon began to change. Along with stores like Marshalls, there were changes in manufacturing patterns, and even higher-end stores had more of their merchandise made in the Far East. Now there are more sources than ever for low-price clothing, yet the merchandise that's available just isn't as good, and the divide between the mass-market stuff and the really good stuff has grown even wider.

When the Downtown Crossing Basement closed in 2007, that was essentially the end, though we didn't want to think so at the time. But even before it shut down, all you had to do was walk through the store to realize its era had passed. In the later years the stuff the Basement was selling was mainly just past-season overstock from mainstream mall chains and department stores, nothing like what you could get back in the good old days, if you were willing to do a little digging and, occasionally, successfully hide something in an out-of-the-way corner until its next markdown day arrived.