QUINCY: SHOPPERSTOWN

Quincy Center was still vibrant in the early ‘60s, but the opening of South Shore Plaza soon led to decline.

Heady days of ‘50s gave way to decline

Brandishing a giant pair of novelty scissors, the smiling group of business leaders and city officials gathered around the ribbon and prepared to christen a new street sign proclaiming Quincy Center as “Shopperstown, South Shore, USA.”

The 1956 marketing campaign was launched as a way to bring the city national attention and help retain its reputation as a retail giant. For a time after World War II, the title was no idle boast thanks to a successful mix of department and specialty stores. A first-of-its kind public parking initiative that created thousands of spaces for downtown shoppers made Quincy the “most inquired about city in the country,” then-Mayor Amelio Della Chiesa said.

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But despite of the optimism of the “Shopperstown” promotional effort, it seems clear its designers could already see the trouble looming. By that time, the new Southeast Expressway was already bypassing Quincy Center, and the biggest threat to the city’s retail dominance was lurking only a few years away with the opening of the South Shore Plaza in Braintree in 1961.

Developers had briefly toyed with the notion of building a shopping mall at the site of Old Colony Crushed Stone in South Quincy, the current site of Crown Colony Office Park. But a less-than-enthusiastic response from the city prompted developers to focus their effort on a farm in North Braintree where the plaza was built.

By the middle of the next decade, the retail exodus had begun and city leaders began scrambling to find ways to reshape Quincy’s downtown. In 1976, two large department stores, Grant’s and Gilchrist’s, closed, followed a year later by the relocation of Milton’s from Quincy Center to the South Shore Plaza. Sears Roebuck - possibly the city’s most important retail anchor - shuttered its Quincy home and moved to the Plaza in 1980.

The downtown faced an identity crisis of sorts. Successive mayors offered plans - some of them quite bold - to reinvent downtown. Malls, pedestrian markets, a new department store and even a helicopter pad to attract shoppers were all pitched but eventually scrapped during the course of three decades.

By the mid-1980s, Quincy Center was still home to the popular Bargain Center and department store holdout Remick’s. But the Bargain Center and the massive crowds it attracted for back-to-school sales were eliminated in 1986 to make way for the Presidents Place office and commercial development now standing at Washington and Hancock streets. Remick’s closed in 1987.

Today’s Quincy Center is widely viewed as an aging and underused mix of nail salons, restaurants and specialty shops. But a number of high-end eateries have opened in recent years in what business leaders hope is a sign of things to come.

- CHRISTOPHER WALKER