Hecht's, Friendly Center, Greensboro, North Carolina (orignial 1967 building) 1/12/04

The Hecht's store at Friendly Center was orginally opened as Thalhimers in 1967 and was the largest anchor in the open-air mall at 50,000 square feet on one level, with a second level reserved for storage and future expansion. It replaced a smaller Ellis-Stone store located elsewhere in the shopping center.

Thalhimers operated its Greensboro stores as Ellis-Stone from their purchase of the downtown Greensboro store of that name in 1950, through the opening of the Friendly Center store in 1957, until the erection of this building.

The dramatic concrete-panel arches with brick fills were considered elegant and modern at the time of the store's design and provided a distinctive exterior face to the store when compared to the spartan original design of Friendly Center, which mostly featured brick buildings with aluminum canopies. Thalhimers also featured a collonade around three sides of the building and four front showcases resembling bay windows on the otherwise blank exterior walls.

Expansion of Thahinmers occoured after the closing of the downtown store, three miles east, in 1975 and the additon of a smaller store at Four Seasons Mall, three miles southwest, that same year. The mall store soon totalled 97,000 square feet on two levels. (continued in next post)