The buildings that once were home to two former retail rivals in Akron will be competing again this holiday season... for eyeballs.
O’Neil’s and Polsky’s department stores were rivals in downtown Akron for decades. Every Christmas, each store would put up elaborate window displays. Polsky’s closed in 1978, O’Neil’s closed in 1989, but in recent years the Christmas window tradition has been revived by Akron resident Jeanne Tassiello. Most displays up until the 1960s were discarded each year. But Tassiello says both began to recycle those displays in later years when they were struggling.
“Instead of trying to come up with new displays every year, it was budget: so they held onto them and when they went out of business, they sold them off.
“I think it brings back a lot of memories to people when downtown was a different place. Hopefully we’re on the turn to it being a new and better place. Maybe a little bit of what we remember when we were little; more people walking around downtown.”
Tassiello has collected hundreds of items which she has used over the past six years to recreate some of that old holiday magic in the windows of the former O’Neil’s.
Across the street, Curated Storefront -- a group that has created public works of art in unused storefronts throughout downtown Akron – is helping to revive a sense of the old holiday rivalry downtown. They’re creating a multimedia art and lighting installation at the former Polsky’s.
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