Ralph’s discount store, located on 95 chambers street, first opened in 1968. This store was owned by Ralph Mizrahi, who unfortunately passed away in March of 2016. All information gathered is from first hand stories that my grandfather Ralph Mizrahi has shared with me in the past, an interview conducted with Eddie, son and worker of Ralph MIzrahi, photos of the store, census data found online, and articles and blog posts written about the store.
Ralph Mizrahi, owner of Ralph’s Discount City lived most of his life in Brooklyn. Eventually Ralph moved to New Jersey, where he would commute everyday to arrive at his store. At one time Ralph owned 20 Ralph’s Discount Citys in the united states, some locations including Buffalo, Rochester, Pittsburgh, and Pennsylvania. However the most successful one was the one he opened on Chambers street in 1968. Ralph’s work ethic originated from working with his brothers in retail stores, which encouraged him to open his own retail store and name it after himself. Ralph’s strategy in opening this store was to look for busy areas, “He would stand on the street with a clicker and would click as each person would walk by,” son Eddie Mizrahi explained. When Ralph first opened the store the area was populated with up to 147,000 people ( socialexplorer). Ralph was a true businessman, “He would do the buying, merchandising, supervise the staff, complete the payrolls, and sometimes would even work the cash register.” (inteview) Ralph was dedicated to the success of his business and the care of his customers. Almost all the customers knew Raph by face and felt a sense of family and care when shopping at Ralph’s Discount City.
Ralph’s Discount City on Chambers was open for more than 40 years. During these 40 years Ralph employed approximately 50 employers at one time, including children Eddie, Mordechai, and Esther. “My father used to say “Ralph owns chamber street” – this wasn’t literal but most people felt that way,” Eddie said while chuckling. Many people loved shopping at Ralph’s store because he offered a variety of products from food to medication to house supplies. Ralph even had a yogurt shop, a photo processor, a pharmacy, and a coffee shop all within his store! At one point Ralph’s Discount City was the largest one store for selling cigarettes in Manhattan. Many of his customers were in their 40s and were White Americans (socialexplorer). His customers loved the competitive prices that ralph would sell his products for. After all, he was competing with big retail companies that were not far from his store.
”I go there for all those tedious items: batteries, packing tape, shampoo, toothpaste, light bulbs, chocolate, hardware etc that you can’t be bothered paying top dollar for. Exhibit #1: at my bodega a 15oz container of Nesquik is $3.98. At Ralph’s the same container is $1.59. I don’t even care how they do it, them’s cheap.” – a happy customer posts this online to express his delightful shopping experience at Ralph’s Discount City (Yelp). Ralph’s customers were always able to receive continuity from him and were able to get what they needed.
“ “We’re going to miss your store,” a customer said, picking through the remaining bottles of shampoo left on the barren shelves.
“I’m going to miss you, too,” Mizrahi replied. “ This dialogue represented in Jennifer Milne’s article about the closing of Ralph’s discount City in 2007, displays the kind of connection Ralph had with each of his customers – they would truly be missed as much as the store itself.
When Ralph first bought the store, there were two businesses who used the space previously. Therefore, Ralph knocked down the wall in between and used that big space to start his business. Eventually, Ralph bought the building his store ran from and used the other floors as office space and storage. As his business took off, he even bought four adjacent stores and expanded his own – Ralph’s store took up a big portion of the block – as seen by photographs of the store taken in 1980.
An important part of Ralph’s History is that his store was located on the block of City Hall which brought a tremendous amount of people in the area. In fact, Many people attracted to that area were workers. After all, 84 percent of the population graduated with a bachelor’s degree from college and 92,000 people in the neighborhood were employed. However, today this percentage has dropped to 70 percent, for as time went on the offices in the area changed to apartments (socialexplorer). “Instead of having 20 people in an office we had two people in an apartment,” Eddie sates as he explained how this change affected population size in the area and how less people came to the store.
“As he stepped outside of the store and squinted down the block, Ralph Mizrahi also noted that Chambers St., between Church St. and Broadway, has seen a lot of building turnover in the past few years.“Look at how many stores are empty on this block,” he said. “It used to be all [office] lofts, with 75 to 100 people working in each loft.”” – Jennifer Milne writes.
“Being on Chamber street was great, it was a busy block that was centrally located and was easy to get to through all means of transportation. However there was a lot of crime in that area and business was slower on weekends because the office workers were off.” As time went on the business struggled. It became hard to do business as a small retailer because “a lot of the major companies would only sell truck loads and they would only sell them to the big retailers.” Eddie Mizrahi explains. In addition, Jennifer Milne includes in her article that Ralph Mizrahi blamed the decrease in business as result of 9/11. In fact, Almost 18,000 small businesses were shut down due to the decrease in business after 9/11. Many people were afraid to leave their homes and continue their lives after this national disaster (investopedia).
Unfortunately, Ralph’s Discount City closed in 2007. An offer was made by someone to buy the store and Ralph thought the timing was right and sold it. “The Chambers St. buildings were purchased by the same developer, the S. Myles Group, for a 63,000-square-foot condominium project, said Lisi DeBourbon, a spokesperson for the Landmarks Preservation Commission. The new development will be a limestone-clad six-story building, DeBourbon said, and it will go through the block to an entrance at 77 Reade St. The commission approved the buildings’ demolition and the development plan in November.” (Milne)
After reflecting on the history and ups and downs this store has experienced due to the changing times, I asked Eddie whether he would do anything differently. He responded by saying, “Retail is a dying business it is being taken over by the internet, one day it will be a thing of the past – or be very specialized. I can’t imagine Ralph’s Discount still being open today and doing just as well for the many reasons that Chambers is no longer a popular location as it once was and people are buying less things in stores.” When customers heard that he was closing his store they were very saddened and begged him to keep it open. However, “ As son of the owner I felt great pride in what we accomplish, but it was time consuming and I felt relieved when we closed it.”
