Where do you start when remembering Woolworths? I start with the ladies behind the lunch counter who put up with more kids and their orders of french fries and cokes than any person should ever have to endure. It's not that we were disrespectful, only that we were too young and clueless to leave the huge tips they deserved. Oh well, it was a different age, and these ladies weren't trying to make huge, Ridgewood mortgage payments. Next stop is the photo booth in the front of the store. For the princely sum of $.25 you were allowed, I believe, 4 photos. These were promptly developed and delivered before you could leave the store. After the photo booth I believe the birds and fish in the back of the store would be my final lasting memory. Besides their smell, you could not help but notice all the noise they made. The people who took care of this menagerie had to have had the patience of saints because there were so many to mind. It boggles the mind that one could find all of these things, not to mention the bargain basement, under one roof.
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I'm from Glen Rock, but I spent a LOT of time in Ridgewood -- I especially loved skating at Graydon pool in the winter. I remember this Woolworth's very well -- I don't think it closed until the early 1980s. My brothers and I used to have a morbid interest in counting the dead guppies and goldfish in the fish tanks. There were a lot of them...
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