03/29/2016
Glaser Furniture closing its doors after 70 years
By JAMES E. CASTO For The Herald-Dispatch
Mar 20, 2016
Glaser Furniture is going out of business.
HUNTINGTON - Glaser Furniture Co. located at 1931 3rd Ave., has been a fixture in the 20th Street neighborhood for decades. Now, after 70 years, it's going out of business.
The store was opened by the late Samuel and Rachel Glaser in 1946. Now their sons Norman and Herman Glaser are closing it. They're clearing out the store's merchandise in a final big sale and have sold their building.
"We plan to be out of here by the first week of April," Norman Glaser said.
The brothers had hoped that maybe the next generation of the family would take over the store.
"But all our kids are established and want to do their own thing," Norman said. "None of them live in Huntington and they didn't want to move back here."
Herman said he's been looking forward to retirement for some time. Norman said he's not ready for full retirement but not sure what he will do after the store is closed.
The two men said they can't publicly identify the building's buyer, but they're perfectly willing to say who they aren't selling to - and that's Marshall University.
The store is surrounded by Marshall, and over the years the university made several stabs at purchasing it. The Glasers successfully fought each effort.
At one point, Marshall proposed buying the store and tearing it down to create a parking lot. The brothers suggested that Marshall build a parking building instead. The university said that would be too expensive.
Later MU built a parking garage across the street, on the north side of 3rd Avenue.
In the 1980s, Marshall proposed buying the store and demolishing it to make way for tennis courts at the adjacent Henderson Center.
In the late 1990s, university officials said the Glaser store was the perfect spot for construction of a new fitness center. In March of 2005, the Marshall Board of Governors even voted to begin condemnation proceedings to take the property by eminent domain.
The following December the board had second thoughts and rescinded the action. The Marshall Recreation Center later was built at 5th Avenue and 20th Street, on the former site of the 20th Street Baptist Church.
The brothers believe MU's repeated efforts to acquire their store were unsuccessful because so many of their loyal customers and other people in the community spoke up on their behalf.
"The public opposition was intense," Norman said. "Don't get the wrong idea. We're loyal Marshall fans. We just think there ought to be room in the campus neighborhood for both the university and businesses such as ours."
For years, he noted, "we posted the final score of MU's home basketball games on our store marquee."
The brothers pointed out that the 20th Street neighborhood once was home to dozens of small businesses such as theirs but almost all have disappeared, with their property taken over by Marshall's ever-growing campus.
They also said theirs is the last independent furniture store in Huntington. With their closure, there will be none.
"At one time there were 10," Herman said, "and four of those - Butler's, Willis, Riter and ours - were right here in the 20th Street neighborhood."
Their father, Samuel, was born in 1906 in Poland and was smuggled into Palestine (now Israel) shortly after the Germans invaded in 1939. He left his wife and three young boys behind, hoping to later find a way to get them out. That never happened. He ran out of time. The Germans destroyed his town. Those townspeople not killed on the spot were packed off to concentration camps.
In Palestine he met and married Rachel Levinson and in 1945 they made their way to America. In Huntington, they scrapped together $1,200 to purchase a rummage-like business in the 1900 block of 3rd Avenue. That was 1946 and the birth of Glaser Furniture.
Since new furniture was hard to come by immediately following World War II, the Glasers initially sold mostly second-hand items. It wasn't until later that they were able to begin selling new furniture. Every penny the couple earned was put back into the business to buy inventory and purchase a store building. Later they bought the building next-door as well.
Norman and Herman Glaser spent much of their early life working at the store and helping their parents.
"From the time I was 5 years old, I would run around and dust, put k***s on furniture and things like that," Herman said. He started working full-time at the store in 1960.
Norman went to the University of Cincinnati and then spent some time working in New York and traveling before joining the family business in the 1970s. They also have a brother, Simon, who lives in Israel.
"One reason Simon left Huntington was he didn't like the furniture business," Norman said. "Ironically, he now works for a furniture company in Israel."
The brothers took over the business after their mother died in 1975 and their father moved away to Arizona, where he died in 1996.
Herman said he believes a big reason the family's store was able to thrive for 70 years was its loyal customer base. "Ninety percent of our business comes from repeat customers or word of mouth," he said. "It's always been that way."
Treating their customers fairly was the secret of the store's success, he said. "We never pressured our customers. That's what separated us from the big chain stores."
