Stories. Last updated June 11, 2008

As I find stories and reminiscences about Towers/Bonimart, I'll add them here. If you have something to add here (or correct), please email me. You may also want to check out my Email Bag.
 

Twenty year old shopping card found in Halifax

An old busted TV, birthday balloons, a toilet seat, ancient action figures, a child’s toy stethoscope and a 20-year-old shopping cart.
 

No, it’s not the worst yard sale in history, it’s the list of junk carted off by the Friends of McNabs Island over the weekend.

"We don’t know where a lot of this is coming from," Cathy McCarthy, president of Friends of McNabs, said in a phone interview Sunday.

"McNabs is a provincial park, and for us it’s important that it look like a provincial park."

Seventy people landed on the island in Halifax Harbour on Saturday to start the annual cleanup. By the end of the day they had loaded a fishing boat with 215 bags of garbage and a host of odd finds. Ms. McCarthy said the group has removed 8,000 bags of garbage since the cleanup started in 1991.

This year’s discoveries included a Towers Department Store shopping cart. Ms. McCarthy said she looked online and found the store was bought out by Zellers in 1990. She figures the cart was washed ashore by a winter storm.
 

barrie me not
Posted by spatherdab February 19, 2008

barrie is so boring, there isn’t even a mall. all we have is mother’s pizza and towers department store. when i was in high school we didn’t even have a freakin’ mcdonald’s, just root beer and teenburgers at the dub; and it was all we could do to convince the waitresses at the crock & block to serve us draft beer in their frosted mugs, because we were only 16 but not bad enough girls to have fake I.D. MORE
 

Posted: by Leslie Langford on Thu. 31 Jan., 2008 at 11:14:28 PM
In reply to: Popfan "I've given up as well"  chatelaine.com

I absolutely detest WalMart, and shopping there is the next best thing to having an enema.

Despite their alleged world-class inventory control and supply chain expertise, they can't seem to keep even the most mundane items such as light bulbs, lunch bags, toilet paper or tissues etc. on their shelves. I have yet to go to one of their stores and get everything that I came in for.

The only reason I still go to Wal Mart at all is that they've pretty much killed the competition and can now afford to be fat, dumb, and happy and treat their customers like cattle. Kresge's, Woolworth's, K-Mart, Bonimart, Miracle Mart, Woolco, Horizon, Bi-Way - where are you, now that we really need you?

Most of the WalMart stores are absolute zoos as a result of the crowds, noise, constant paging of staff, and overall congestion. IMHO, anyone who goes there on a Saturday or during the Christmas season is either a masochist or seriously deserves to have their head examined.

As you've pointed out, Zeller's has essentially rolled over and is playing dead. Similarly, now that Canadian Tire has been Debbie Travis-ized, you can't find a thing in their stores anymore because of the way the merchandise has been shuffled around, and they have become more of a home decor center than the hardware/automotive chain they used to be.
 

Wednesday, August 22, 2007

The Bonimart story
Current mood: happy
Category: Blogging (Facebook - Kaiser Von Doom)

Years ago, when I was around 4 or 5, there was a transformer that I have always wanted. His name was Kup, and he was my favourite character in the original 1986 Transformers movie. I was at Bonimart with my parents, (which is now Zellers in Chateauguay.) I don't remember what we were there for, but I saw the toy of Kup and I asked my parents if they could buy it for me. They told me "not now, next time." funny thing is; Bonimart went out of business before "next time" came around. I never saw the toy again in stores. All these years later I've still been wanting the toy, even though newer Transformers toys are better. I still wanted the oldschool toy that was denied to me as a kid. Now, after so many years later, I finally have the Transformer that has eluded me for 18 years. Even better is the fact that it still has the original box! (you can see it in my pics.) All I have to say is: it may not be as articulated as newer toys but this toy is bad ass and worth the money I paid for it. MORE
 

Posted by Kiera on Wednesday, November 07, 2007 at 2:56 PM

I got hit by a car in front of bonimart.... MORE
 

Save our signs of the times
Excerpt from The Expositor, February 2, 2008

The Expositor had a story last week about the Brant Museum and Archives wanting to save a fluorescent sign from the old Moody's strip club downtown. The sign isn't of the usual strip club sort. It shows the fashionably smart 1920s woman wearing a fashionable hat.

The sign isn't terribly old. It's certainly not from the Roaring Twenties. It's more likely from the Exhilarating Eighties, when downtown was the place to go for entertainment.

It's not clear where the museum on Charlotte Street, behind city hall, would store the Moody's sign. It might look good on the museum's front, outside wall. There's been a precedent. For years, a large Iroquois mask was there.

We don't think of the 1980s or '90s as history, but they are. The time to preserve artifacts from that era is now - before they are gone.

The museum should be eyeing the small, wooden sign above the entrance to the Admiral sub shop at Dalhousie and Queen streets. Appropriately flanked by ship's anchors, it says: "Admiral Harry's. Welcome to Gus' Tower Burger & Mega Fries Town."

I asked the guys where they got it. They said they had found it in some brush near the Grand River. Would I buy it for $10?

I hemmed and hawed. The price was right but where would I put it? The sign was five or six feet tall. Reluctantly, I said no. The guys and their sign were last seen being escorted from the mall by a security guard.

Later, I watched Silent Hill and, sure enough, there was the road sign in an early scene where the heroine is driving to the haunted, abandoned city whose main drag sternly resembled Colborne Street. Some day, props from Silent Hill will be collector's items.

I would pay up to $15 for that sign today. I would like to think the Brant Museum and Archives got it.

Another sign that would look good on the museum's front wall, if anyone has one, would be a sign from an old Towers department store. Remember how the capital T in Towers resembled the Eiffel Tower? That was class.

Or how about a Woolco or K-Mart sign? That's where Brantford shopped 20 years ago. It was standing room only on $1.44 day.

Finally, I hope the Waterford museum has in its collection a sign that was on the town's Main Street, my guess is 20 or 30 years ago. The sign was for a pottery store. It showed a knight in shining armour holding a shield with a big R on it. The store's name was Sir Ramic.

David Judd is The Expositor's managing editor. E-mail him at djudd@theexpositor.com
 

Vintage fabric blouse
This blouse is made from a once in a lifetime fabric find. I was given a box of fabrics from someone cleaning out her stash. In the bottom was a paper bag from the old Towers Department store, which closed in the late eighties. In the bag was five yards of this fabric, complete with receipt and hang tag. The tag read:

"100% drip dry nylon! The wonder skin tight fabric. Now in brilliant psychedelic prints that never fade!"

All true! The pattern is a modern one, from a commercial catalogue, from a retro inspired collection. The skirt and belt are my own creations also. MORE
 

Rampant Nostalgia Alert!
1974. I'm 11 years old. It's a cool and cloudy Saturday afternoon. We're at the Towers department store in North Bay, Ontario. I've spent a lot of time and money in their rows of paperback racks, buying Mad magazine reprint books, Charlie Brown books, UFO and Chariots of the Gods-type stuff (I grew out of that within another year or two), and Star Trek books. So I'm looking through the SF books and -- hey! a Star Trek book I haven't seen before!

It doesn't even look like the other ones! Wait, there are two of them here! Ballantine Books, not Bantam, Alan Dean Foster, not James Blish, but still based on episodes, according to the back cover. Are they an alternative version of the Blish books? Took me a minute to realize that the front covers were stills from the animated series I'd barely seen any of yet. (I don't like that sentence structure. "Any of yet." But I am possessed and writing at white heat and cannot stop to change it.) MORE
 

The Bonimart story
Years ago, when I was around 4 or 5, there was a transformer that I have always wanted. His name was Kup, and he was my favourite character in the original 1986 Transformers movie. I was at Bonimart with my parents, (which is now Zellers in Chateauguay.) I don't remember what we were there for, but I saw the toy of Kup and I asked my parents if they could buy it for me. They told me "not now, next time." funny thing is; Bonimart went out of business before "next time" came around. I never saw the toy again in stores.

All these years later I've still been wanting the toy, even though newer Transformers toys are better. I still wanted the oldschool toy that was denied to me as a kid. Now, after so many years later, I finally have the Transformer that has eluded me for 18 years. Even better is the fact that it still has the original box! (you can see it in my pics.) All I have to say is: it may not be as articulated as newer toys but this toy is bad ass and worth the money I paid for it.
 

From My Space:
I stole Bubble Gum in Bonimart at 6 years old to know how it felt and I felt HORRIBLE! I still feel the shame!! MORE
 

Paraplegic comes a long way be he's still looking for job
Al Ramji, who's father works at the Towers Warden and Finch store, is presented with $2,500 to purchase wheelchair, walker, and braces. (February 1982) MORE
 

Better paying jobs for women aim of government program MORE
Women's Equal  Opportunity in Employment division of the Ontario Ministry of Labour works with Towers, and other "blue-ribbon" employers, to help women get better jobs. (October 1977)
 

Towers gains a satisfied customer
Towers customer wants to return a dress.  Head Office steps in. (August 1970) MORE
 

Joanne remembers "screamers driving through the Bonimart parking lot" in Greenfield, Quebec. MORE
 

Helen thinks about a food fight at Bonimart. MORE

Ron Toppazzini sells pizza at the Bonimart in Sudbury. MORE

Halloween is great in your Towers "flame retardant" costume! MORE

Remembers buying an "insane laser poster from the nearby Towers". MORE

Bonimart - huge store - huge parking lot. MORE

A Towers blog MORE

"I remember exactly the way the bolts of velvet felt when I used to touch them in the old Towers department store." MORE

"The economic downturn of the 1980s caused HBC to rethink its priorities and, like many other firms, return to its core business. Non-retail businesses were sold off." MORE

Nick: "John Candy was a guy who worked at the Towers department store at Midland and Lawrence where I grew up in Scarborough!  I kid you not! "

Alana: "Towers department stores in Atlantic Canada went out of business a number of years ago. They carried a brand of yarn carrying their name  and made by a company called Bonimart in Canada. This is the best Sayelle I've ever knit with and it washes like an old rag without any worries, and I can't find anymore that is both machine wash and machine dry. Does anyone know what name it is now being sold under, or where I can get some more. When Towers went under I bought a whole bunch, and it's almost gone. Failing that, can anyone recommend another Sayelle that is machine wash and machine dry and nice to knit with??"

A 3/6/2007 post by nostra-YOUPPI!:
Yeah a friend of mine worked at the one in chateauguay (bonimart post bill 101) it was a consumers distributing/bonimart/IGA (iga was owned by the same company as towers at the time oshawa group) there was one zellers didnt take in st hubert quebec, became a huge flea market and there still was a sign over the door saying "thank you for shopping bonimart"

And another post from 2004:

We "quebecois" like to pass protectionist laws and expect the government to protect our asses economically yet we dont give to shits about shopping at walmarde for all our stuff, there are canadian and quebecois chains that have equivalent stuff at competitive price. Ie : zellers, tigre geant, geant des aubaines, hart. If we were so proud of our own enterprises oshawa group wouldnt have had to liquidate towers bonimart, The movie elvis gratton shows these qualities perfectly