Holidays at Hahne’s!
By Collections Manager Erin Benz
1950s: Hahne and Company Budget Shop Exterior at 50 Church Street
Back in 2023 (can you believe it’s 2024 already?), the Montclair History Center received a donation of items from the Montclair Hahne & Company Department Store that included branded boxes, posters, bags, magazines, locker tags, and many, many photographs. The items donated were a welcome addition to the collection as they capture a piece of Montclair’s history. During the mid-20th century, everyone in Montclair and the Essex County area knew the name Hahne & Company. But for those youngsters that didn’t get a chance to visit the beloved department store, here’s a little background: founded in Newark in 1858 by Julius Hahne, a pocketbook maker, Hahne & Company eventually became known as a New Jersey version of high-quality Manhattan department stores. In 1937, Montclair became the site of its first branch at 50 Church Street. An additional location would open up at 56 Church Street with the original building becoming the Hahne & Company Budget Shop.
While a majority of the items donated to us capture the daily-life of shopping at Hahne & Co., most of the photographs are of the holiday displays put together in the windows of the Hahne’s store during the 1960s. Starting in 1950, people from all over would come to see the window displays that had been carefully put together. As one writer for the Montclair Times in 1964 put it:
“Each [window] portrays a spellbinding setting equally fascinating seen by day or night. They weave a spell that makes one pause in pure delight for cherished moments of priceless pleasure and the memory lingers on to enrich the spirit and add to the wonder of another long-treasured Yuletide season.”
Hahne’s eventually closed in 1989, ending the holiday window display tradition (with the exception of one time in 1990) and leaving the Park Street location vacant until the 2007 redevelopment. To relive the past and see more photographs of the window displays, visit our digital collections on our website here.
