Alan Morrell

Tent City was a no-frills, old-school megastore at Lyell and Dewey avenues in Rochester for 40 years.

The place was a retail anchor for the long-beleaguered neighborhood and a mecca for campers who traveled from miles away for the vast assortment of tents and outdoor gear.

In later years, Tent City expanded to Webster and to a "new version" just down the street. To many Rochester-area residents, though, "Tent City" meant the two-floor, 40,000-square-foot flagship store at 280 Lyell, a scrappy place with loads of character.

"Nobody would ever call Tent City a pretty place to shop," Sherry Jacobson wrote in a 1985 Times-Union story. "The patchwork linoleum (floor) is held together with duct tape and staples in some spots. Then there's the ceiling: fluorescent lights crisscrossing open space beneath a web of pipes and peeling paint."

The store's general manager at the time, Louis Margolis, explained the ambience in the same story.

"Aesthetics aren't important here," he said. "You get it too pretty, and people will stop coming. People don't feel they're getting bargains. It's all psychological — the racks, the pipes, the linoleum."

Tent City was like two stores in one. Downstairs was a motley collection of low-price clothing, shoes and toys, where you might buy Army fatigues, overalls or bags of marbles. The second floor had dozens of fully assembled tents on display and was known to have one of the biggest varieties of camping and outdoor gear in upstate New York.

Tent City also was warmly regarded as a store that offered layaway to customers who struggled to pay for their merchandise. Three cavernous rooms in back held the layaway goods, Jacobson wrote, quoting a customer who told her, "They give you a long, long time to pay it off."

The store was the brainchild of founder Ben Atkins, a Rochester native who started in retail with Neisner's stores in the Midwest. He returned to Rochester after World War II and began a regional retail chain with the first of what would be several Outdoor Stores and a couple of Sportstown stores.

Atkins opened Tent City in 1959 in a former warehouse at the corner of Lyell and Dewey. It became his passion, family members said in a news account months after he died in 1982. Atkins put in seven-day, 70-hour weeks, his daughter recalled in the story, and "bounced back from three heart attacks, returning to work stronger and stronger."

After Atkins' death, his family decided in 1983 to shutter the businesses, which included Tent City and the 11 remaining smaller stores. Tent City's closing led to neighborhood outcry and would not last long. The Atkins family formed a new partnership and reopened the store two months later.

Another Tent City store opened in 1993 in Webster, in a strip mall near Ridge and Hard roads behind Hegedorn's. Yet another version opened in 1995 across Dewey Avenue at 47 Parkway. Frank Bilovsky wrote about the newest store in a Democrat and Chronicle story that year.

"Tent City has changed its image," Bilovsky wrote. "It's no longer the throwback to the earlier era that its flagship store … implies. The clutter and maze that were hallmarks of the decades-old operation have all but disappeared."

The new Tent City had a rock-climbing wall and was described by its owner as "our theme park," with a broader selection of offerings. The merchandise from the second floor of the flagship store was gone, the space used as a warehouse and office space. The venerable old store's days were numbered.

Tent City finally closed its original store and its Webster shop in 1999. The version on Parkway stayed open for a while, but has been closed for years.

The glorious old store at 285 Lyell is now occupied by a thrift store. There has been talk about converting the building into apartments — described on the city's website as Gardner Lofts — but no apparent action.

Morrell is a Rochester-based freelance writer.

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About this feature

"Whatever Happened To? ..." is a feature that explores favorite haunts of the past and revisits the headlines of yesteryear. It's a partnership between RocRoots.com and "Join if you're from Rochester New York" on Facebook.

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