Originally Posted By: pizzaboy

In Leonard's '70s set books, I've noticed that Hudson's department store gets mentioned an awful lot. Was that a big and famous place?

wink Oh my goodness yes....


Hudson's was the place where everyone in the tri-country area did all of their shopping. It had both low-cost and relatively upscale goods. It combined art-deco and modern gothic architecture. It was crammed full of people on the weekends. It was a good place to get lost in. It was the tallest department store in the world. It had freight elevators which could fit semi-trailers. The passenger elevator operators were all classy top notch guys with uniforms and gloves. Anyone in SE Michigan who was born before say 1978 or so must have memories of the place.

It closed down in 1983 and was demolished in 97 or 98 but to show you the nostalgic feelings, there were plenty of people that ran to get bricks or other things from the building. Lot of good memories around Hudson's. That ending in "Casino" when they talk about the onslaught of depersonalized corporate casinos? That's close to how I felt about the big malls taking over the spot that Hudson's used to occupy.

"When the snows fall and the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies but the pack survives."
Winter is Coming

Now this is the Law of the Jungle—as old and as true as the sky; And the wolf that shall keep it may prosper, but the wolf that shall break it must die.
As the creeper that girdles the tree-trunk, the Law runneth forward and back; For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf, and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack.