Stories Last updated February 21, 2010

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.
 

Comment:
Tue, 21 Jan 2003 04:35:53 -0800
> Catherine,
>
> Growing up in Burlington, Ontario- not too too far
> from the burbs of Toronto,
> my hunch is that your record store of choice may
> have been Towers Dept.
> Store??!! That was the closest for me, and I still
> remember when albums were
> $3.17 CDN of course! and then jumped to $3.21. LOL!

Reply:
You know, it probably was Towers. They were within
walking distance of our house and it's where my
sisters and I used to go to hang out, buy records and
cheap makeup. Ironically, some years later I would
take a part-time job at Towers - a job which I quit
within a few months because I was tired of cleaning up
after slobby people that just threw stuff around when
they were looking through it.

Catherine
Toronto
 

From My Designs:

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.
 

From Between Friends blog:

The Newspaper Comics I Read as a Kid...

I received a little Q&A survey from someone who's interviewing cartoonists for their blog. I don't have time to answer all the questions right this minute, but took a quick look at what he was asking.

One of the questions is: Which comics did you read as a kid?

Aside from Archie comic books, I always read the comics page in my local paper, The St. Catharines Standard. Where else could you read comics? (Oh wait...I remember finding those little paperback Peanuts collections... 60 cents at Towers department store. Does that date me or what?)

Here's the line-up as I remember it...and this would probably be early 70's...maybe very late 60's...
 

From Daily Gleaner:

The man behind the carefully applied face paint is Ray Mulholland. He's been clowning around since 1975, when he lived in Summerside, P.E.I.

"I couldn't come up with a name," he said. "I was looking in the mirror and no name came to me, so I was just 'The Clown.' "

The name Tinsel didn't come until the early 1980s. It was given to him by someone who said that his outfit made him look like a Christmas tree covered in tinsel. Mulholland first got interested in being a clown thanks to a Halloween dance, where everyone dressed up in costume.

"At Towers department store, I found some interesting material on a remnants table in the curtain section. My wife, the seamstress, put it all together and she and I had matching costumes," he says.

The couple won first prize for their clown outfits. That original costume lasted until 1998 or 1999, he says.

"My wife is not as adventurous as I am. She only wore it the one time," he says, laughing as he adds, "So I had a backup costume."

Being a clown was a good fit for Mulholland, as he has "a bit of a sense of humour" and enjoys putting a smile on someone's face.
 

From RetroJunk:

I liked the Woolco at Centrepoint Mall (Toronto or immediately outside it on Yonge and Steeles). I have even warmer memories of the Towers department store at Jane Finch Mall (bought by Zellers in 1990). In the 80s it had all a kid could want. Got some of my first transformers there (I specifically recall getting Blaster and Blurr there). As a small boy (3, not more than 4), I was at this Towers and there was this little toy hen on wheels. That night or sometime after, I dreamed that it was nighttime and I saw the hen about as big as a car and wheeling down the mall's parking lot.
 

From pleasantfamilyshopping.blogspot.com:

1974- Hypermarché- Oshawa Group wanted to create a Towers/Food City combined store in Laval. For about 3 years, this store did offer all. However, both sections were separated, and as Hypermarché did keep the name for the food section, the department store section was named Bonimart (however, after many changes later, the store is just now rubble...)
 

From Wal*Mart Facebook page (October 5, 2009):

Wal-Mart is so much better than Zellers. Wal-Mart stores are much cleaner, the staff is much more knowledgeable, and when the sales happen, they have everything in stock. Wal-Mart reminds me of the old Towers Department Stores in a way.
 

From his-tech.ca:

GJH Enterprises Inc. started in South Western Ontario as an Electrical Services Contractor in 1984. Our specialty at the time was working on NCR Point of Sales systems for Towers Department Stores and Food City Grocery stores through out South Western Ontario.
 

From Jane-Finch.com:

"What a cool web site, i grew up in the famous jane&finch area back in 1972, worked at towers dept stores, and lived at 21 potsdam rd. always loved the jane&finch area but moved to nova scotia in 1984 when i married.(thanks for the memories)"
 

From Jane-Finch.com:

"My children and I lived in the area in the early 1960's where there were still lots of open spaces, the J/F corner had Towers, a Dominion store and a few other stores in the mall, and it was a safe area to walk around aat any time. My children went to Topcliff school, and then we lived up by Steeles Avenue where they were among the first children to attend an open concept school, and that was Shoreham Public."
 

Posted in "Welcome Allan...A New blog Visiter":

You don't know me, My name is Allan Wright. I lived in the park for many yrs on Eva St and Dakers cresent across from Rob Pelltier. My cousin Mike Wright ( he's married to Barbara Hewitt, Ralph Hewitt's sister) told me about your website and have enjoyed viewing it over the past few months, especially the old photos from around the park,and the past southshore landmarks.

There are a few places that i don't think have been mentioned on the site, that might bring back a few memories to your readers. For example The Bocage bar on tashereau, The A.W that used to be in front of the GFPK cinema, Towers dept store behind the canada motel, the driving range that was also behind the motel, Miss Chinatown on victoria, Fred Dobson's Texico on victoria to name a few.
 

From "Past Jobs that we held just to pay the bills", posted October 12, 2005 11:16PM

High school, worked in the main office filing report cards..mi did know what all di uppity gyal dem marks was..dwl, some a dem did dunce nuh fawt.

swiss chalet, couldn't handle the hot plates up the arms, plus the waitress training me pocketed all the tips so mi go fi break after 3 hours work....well I'm stil on break 25 years later and have only had eaten dem food once since then.

worked at Mcdonalds, 6 monhts...quit, church's fried chicken, 6 months...quit, bulk food store, couple months, towers dept. store for about 5 years, the worst of that job was working in the pet dept....sold pets....cleaned hamster and bird cages and the fish tanks...after that mi decided I didn't want any pets in my house....but di pickney dem won out on that one.
 

October 2002 blog:

Start a new thread! Is it going to be another D&D thing? If you want it to be cool, have lots of dungeons. Running around big flat maps makes me stop playing the game very fast. Ideally it won't be same-old armour/swords/spells, but what else is there? I would love a horror RPG influenced by H.P. Lovecraft. There's a gold mine that nobody has ever successfully transmuted into a movie or computer game yet.

Oh, I remember Donkey Kong on the Colecovision. Too bad I could only play it at the local Towers dept. store. That chain is dead, now, btw. How I wished for a Colecovision. That shurely would have ruined me!
 

From a web page "Retail rants: The worst/weirdest customers in the world....." (posted May 13, 2003):

In regards to the person asking if you sold "toes"... I once had a woman from an Eastern European country asking about something that sounded like "pyjamas". This was when I worked at Towers Dept. store, so she could have been looking for anything.
 

An entry in a 2008-11-18 blog:

"...and here's to Towers Dept. Store where I worked as a stockboy and the cashiers wore yellow mini dresses as short as a midget's crewcut and I went home with a boner after every shift!"
 

Mookie Wilson Blog
January 27, 2009

I miss it!!

One day, years ago, at Towers department store I saw a Rubiks cube on the shelf for $1.99, and I found my new love. I spent every last second with that multi coloured square... and enjoyed every second of it. Back in my day, there was no internet to go source out the pattern to solve it, so we relied on classroom chatter. All you do is 5 turns to the right, followed by 3 spins up, one left, another right and so on, and so on. Remember how happy people were when they could do one side? High fives filled the hallways of every public school... but not ours. It was the day the school changed forever when I solved all 6 sides. From that day on, I got all the ladies! LOL I brought it to school one day after a long night at home twisting and turning, sweat pouring from my brow as I wanted to impress the two hotties at the time, Tara and Judy.

I had a flashlight under my covers with me, so not to give away what I was doing into the wee hours of the morning. My parents would have killed me!! Then at about 5 that morning, I DID IT!! I solved the whole thing, and couldn't wait to show it off to my classmates. This was unbelievable, and unchartered territory for Fairfield Public School in Burlington. There was no way I could sleep then, so the 4 hours before school started was the longest wait of my life. For once.. I wanted to go to school!

The kids at school didn't believe me. Soooo, I had to do it again. The pressure was on. Could I do it again? God, I hope so. This is my ticket to popularity and... the ladies! Not only did I do it, but I did it in about 20 minutes after school. Sighs everywhere, followed by some loud "Whatever's" from some of the Rat Pack.

A few years later I brought a few cubes to St. Lucia to be used as currency. You could get whatever you want with little gems like these. What did I trade it for? Great big chunks of sugar cane. I was 15 at the time, and looking for a little rush. God was that good! You just sunk your teeth into it a little bit and got the juices. You couldn't eat it, as it had the consistency of cardboard or bamboo.

But now to make a long story even longer... I miss my rubik's cube. I'm not sure I could even find one again, but I will be on the look out.

What do you miss?

Mookie
 

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