Rewind:  February 15, 2022

“Remembering Honigsbaum’s”

Before there was City Park, the building at 7 Lapham Place, in which the Lower Adirondack Regional Arts Council (LARAC) is located today, was once a carriage house and stable for the Byron Lapham estate.

Since the time as a carriage house, several other uses for the building – currently the home of the Lower Adirondack Regional Arts Council were found.  The building on the Park was once retail space for a women’s quality specialty shop, Honigsbaum’s.

That chain, which included three stores at one time, was started by Frank Honigsbaum after he immigrated from Europe.  Mr. Honigsbaum began his mercantile career as a peddler in the Catskills around the turn of the 20^th Century.

A friend and fellow countryman sold a lottery ticket to Frank, Frank’s brother and his brother-in-law.  At the time, the three men had to pool their money to come up with the two dollars for the price of the ticket.

Long story short, they won!  The prize was $1,500 which they split three ways.  With his $500 winnings in 1904, Frank Honigsbaum opened what would become the largest department store in the Catskills, Honigsbaum’s of Tannersville.

In 1932, as the Depression worsened, Honigsbaum moved to Albany and started a new Honigsbaum’s.  This time it was a specialty shop that originally featured riding clothes and other sports wear.  The business prospered and Honigsbaum’s opened two more stores, one in Stuyvesant Plaza, Albany, and in 1952, a store in  Glens Falls, on the Park.

The store in Glens Falls flourished for over forty years.  Sometime circa 1995, the store relocated to the Northway Plaza on Upper Glen Street, near the present-day Home Depot building.  After a few years in the plaza, the store closed, and Warren County lost a specialty ladies clothing store.

The material for this column came from the special 1963 Sesquicentennial Edition of The Post Star.