This post was written by library volunteer Diane Leone.
Graubart Jewelers was an historic business in downtown Schenectady that operated for over a century (1897-2002), under the guidance of four generations of the Graubart family.
The founder of the business was Samuel Graubart, a Jewish immigrant from Austria who came to the US toward the end of the 19th century. He rented a property on lower State Street and named his business Samuel Graubart Jewelers. He was part of a wave of Jewish immigrants who came to America in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Those who settled in Schenectady often made their living as peddlers or opened modest businesses selling groceries, liquor and clothing. Some of these entrepreneurs saw great success, such as Jonathan Levi, who became a wealthy wholesale grocer, and Russian immigrant Lewis Golub, whose wholesale grocery warehouse, founded in 1908, gave rise to the well-known Price Chopper supermarket chain established by his two sons in 1932.
When it opened in 1897, the store stood at the corner of Ferry and State Streets. Samuel relocated to 249 State Street about a decade later. In 1910 Samuel was joined by his son, Maurice. They finally moved the business to 166 Jay Street, where it remained for over eighty years until closing in December 2002. In time, the business was renamed Maurice B. Graubart Jewelers. Eventually Maurice and his wife, Anna, brought their two sons, Walter and Hershel, into the family business. Both boys helped out in the store on a part-time basis. Hershel began doing so at age 11, cleaning the counters for his grandfather. Two years later he was working daily after school let out. With the onset of World War II the brothers entered the military, but returned to the business after the conflict ended. Again, the business was renamed; this time to Maurice B. Graubart and Sons.
Walter, the older son by approximately five years, recalled that his grandfather discouraged him from becoming either an attorney or a doctor because they often brought their work home. He recommended instead that his grandson enter the jewelry business. Walter, who ultimately became president of the family business, said, “It’s a happy, happy vocation and I’m glad I chose it.” (1) His brother had a more pressing reason for entering the business. He realized that his love for photography—he was an army photographer in World War II—would not provide him with a comfortable income. As he said, “I wanted to get married and I had to make a living, so I went into the jewelry business.” (2)
Like all businesses, Graubarts must have suffered the effects of the Great Depression. Hershel recalled his father voicing his concern over the store’s finances: “It was early in the 1930s and I remember well my father coming home and saying that this week he had not sold enough to cover payroll.” (3) To make matters worse, in May of 1933 a fire began in Bill Creegan's restaurant at 152 Jay Street, damaged a number of nearby establishments, including Graubart’s at 166 Jay Street, which was then on the corner of an alley. The photograph below indicates that the building was condemned and that Sam and Maurice had a fire sale to dispose of their inventory. The fire may explain why the city directory lists the store as located at 141 Jay Street for 1930 and 1931.
The Graubart family emphasized the importance of contributing to the community, and the store often served as a place for people to get together. Over their long tenure, the proprietors earned the trust of their customers, who often included several generations of the same families. Looking back on the earlier years in the business, when credit was commonly extended:
He [Hershel] recalled
a day when a man walked into the store with a pocket watch his grandfather had
acquired from Samuel Graubart to use in his job on the railroad. At the time,
the railroad worker didn’t have the money to pay for it. Samuel Graubart handed
the watch to him anyway and told him to pay for it when he could. (4)
Like their grandfather, Walter and Hershel also extended benefits to customers: “If we knew a customer well enough, if they had a baby, we’d engrave the baby’s name on a sterling baby cup and have it sent to them. We used to do that very often.” (5)
The mid-twentieth century was the heyday of urban shopping. In the WMHT documentary “Remembering Downtown,” Hershel reminisced about the brisk city business during a typical lunch hour before the proliferation of malls:
Lunch hour on Jay Street was fantastic. It was just jammed. The sidewalks were packed, especially when the American Locomotive Company let out for their lunch hour. You could not walk on Jay Street. You were taking your life in your hands when you crossed the street because of the automobile traffic on Jay Street. And many years ago, before my time, there was two-way traffic on Jay Street, if you can imagine that. But the streets were packed all over downtown. People laughed and sang and had a good time while they were shopping. (6)
The photograph below, although depicting an earlier Jay Street than discussed in the documentary, illustrates the hustle and bustle of downtown in previous eras.
For most of its existence Graubarts was located at 166 Jay Street. Named for American patriot John Jay, the thoroughfare grew from a dirt lane around two hundred seventy-five years ago to a commercial venue, blossoming particularly after the Civil War, when the burgeoning city began to expand eastward from its original downtown. Over the decades, Jay Street featured churches, banks, jewelers, funeral parlors, and theaters, among many other establishments. Among these occupants, Graubarts, with its 105 year run, was a stable presence whose proprietors contributed to the thoroughfare’s welcoming atmosphere. Hershel noted that they handed out lemonade to people when the temperature rose to over 85 degrees. Walter told a Daily Gazette reporter of a long-standing tradition: whenever the street was repaved, most recently during the 1998 overhaul of the Jay Street pedestrian mall, he tossed tiny stones onto the new concrete “so the rocks will glitter in the moonlight.” (7)
In 1997, the business reached a milestone that few ever do: it celebrated its one hundredth anniversary. In honor of this occasion, then New York State assemblyman James N. Tedisco wrote Walter and Hershel a congratulatory letter, shown below. Around this time, the brothers decided to trim their working hours to around two days per week, turning over the daily running of the business to Hershel’s daughter, Sheryll Graubart-Hoffman, who had already been working at the store for a number of years. Five years later Hershel and Walter closed the store, selling most of their inventory to a liquidation specialist.
Although Hershel said that the decision was based on their ages and their health, the environment for downtown businesses at the start of the 21st century was not ideal. Before the creation of the Schenectady County Metroplex Development Authority in 1998, the city had major problems, as reported in the Daily Gazette:
Along with the challenge presented by the physical decay, there was a need to change the mindset of residents and the business community, said John Manning, Metroplex chairman from 1998 to 2004. The city’s population dropped from 91,000 to 61,000 between 1950 and 2000, and much of the downtown business base followed those former residents to the suburbs or otherwise disappeared. (8)
The brothers, although solicited by more than one new mall with the promise of free rent, opted to stay on Jay Street. Their store’s closing at the end of 2002 was significant, not only because of its longevity, but also because it marked the end of an important period in the life of the city’s Jewish-owned businesses. According to Hershel, there was a time when about two-thirds of State Street merchants would shut down during the high holydays of the Jewish faith. Eventually, as Dr. Harvey Strum notes in “Schenectady’s Jewish Immigrants: Acculturation and Preserving History,” these businesses suffered, not only from the growth of suburban malls, but also as a result of the passing of the earlier immigrant population and the attractiveness of the professions for those who previously would have entered the business world. As the author notes, “The closing of Graubart and Sons Jewelry in 2002, founded in 1897, symbolized the end of Jewish owned small businesses lining downtown.” (9)
How many times did we head down Jay Street and find such a warm welcome from you dear people. We really felt like members of your family and always found the help and expertise we needed. You showed such caring concern, whatever work needed to be done. (10)
When the store closed in 2002 Sheryll Graubart-Hoffman had been managing the business without owning it. As she tells it, her father did not want to sell her the store with the drop in customer traffic, the result of a reluctance to travel to the downtown area. After the closure, Sheryll managed JM Jewelers on Mariaville Road, ultimately purchasing the business in 2007, where her father sometimes helped out. As she noted in a 2008 Times Union article, most of the customers from the Jay Street store brought their business to her.
It has been over twenty years since Graubart Jewelers shut its doors. Sadly, Walter, who had been suffering with cancer at the time, died in 2003 at the age of 85. Hershel lived a longer life, passing in 2017 at the age of 94. Both were active in the community, as well as in their profession. Walter was a senior member of the NGJA Appraisal Society. He also served in leadership positions in many civic organizations, including as vice-president of the Schenectady Merchants Bureau, and president of B’nai B’rith. Hershel was a certified gemologist, an emeritus member of the American Gem Society, and one-time president of the New York State Jewelers Association.
The Graubart family was proud of their business, and strove to serve their customers and community during their 105 years in downtown Schenectady.
References:
1) Spagnoli, Victoria R. "Graubart and Sons, Downtown Sch'dy Fixture, to Close." Daily Gazette (Schenectady, NY), November 6, 2002, B1.
2) de la Rocha, Kelly. "A Sterling Life." Daily Gazette (Schenectady, NY), July 15, 2014, A2.
3) "Happy 100th Anniversary." Observations, January 6, 1997, 6-7.
4) de la Rocha, Kelly. "A Sterling Life."
5) de la Rocha, Kelly. "A Sterling Life."
6) Remembering Downtown. Aired March 5, 20002, on WMHT. Accessed April 11, 2023. https://www.pbs.org/video/wmht-specials-remembering-downtown/
7) Keegan, John, III. "Jay Street Mall Celebrates Revival: Crowds Enjoy Day on Made-over Walkway." Daily Gazette, September 20, 1998, B3.
8) Cropley, John. "'Plex-ing Its Muscles." Daily Gazette (Schenectady, NY), October 21, 2018, Front Page.
9) Strum, Harvey, Dr. "Schenectady's Jewish Immigrants: Acculturation and Preserving History." New York History Review (blog). Entry posted September 6, 2017. Accessed April 18, 2023. http://newyorkhistoryreviewarticles.blogspot.com/2017/09/schenectadys-jewish-immigrants.html.
10) Tatge, Jane O. Letter to Hershel Graubart, January 24, 2003. 2003.125.1. Family Document. Schenectady County Historical Society.
For the complete bibliography for this article, please contact the SCHS Librarian at librarian@schenectadyhistorical.org.
