{"id":257,"date":"2012-05-06T13:23:25","date_gmt":"2012-05-06T17:23:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/built-environment\/?p=257"},"modified":"2012-10-20T11:55:26","modified_gmt":"2012-10-20T15:55:26","slug":"levines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/built-environment\/2012\/05\/06\/levines\/","title":{"rendered":"Losing Levine’s: The Disappearance of Independently Owned Stores"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Levine\u2019s, a small, family owned store, provided Waterville residents with clothing for decades. Established in 1891, Levine\u2019s attracted a loyal customer base during its 105 years in operation and was driven by repeat customer business. Sarah and William Levine succeeded in serving the immigrant \u00a0populationin Waterville by communicating with their customers in Polish. The Main Street store catered to workmen, \u00a0lawyers, \u00a0doctors, professors, and college kids, which ensured that Levine\u2019s was always in tune with consumer demands. More importantly though, Levine\u2019s was a gathering place. Unlike the huge and impersonal environment that currently exists at Walmart, Levine\u2019s provided consumers with a pleasant and friendly shopping experience. The people who worked and shopped at Levine\u2019s were all from Waterville, and therefore all of the profit gained from Levine\u2019s contributed to organic Waterville economic growth. Levine\u2019s represented the idealized version of Waterville that had existed in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Until 1996, the beloved store proved that hard work and devotion could lead to honest and much deserved success.<\/p>\n

Sadly, the last years of the twentieth century brought disaster for Waterville\u2019s longest standing store. William and Sarah\u2019s shop was ultimately squeezed out of business by the successful entry of Walmart and other large stores. The reach of corporate, capitalist culture had overpowered Waterville\u2019s small business focus. The economies of scale Walmart achieved through integrated global production and distribution meant that it could sell a wide variety of goods at low prices. \"\"<\/a>Although Levine\u2019s was beloved among Watervillians, locals already struggling to support themselves could not afford to sacrifice bargains in order to support their neighbors.<\/p>\n

Levine\u2019s simply could not keep up with Walmart\u2019s competitive entry in the Waterville marketplace. While Levine\u2019s succeeded in the small-town business environment, the changing capitalist landscape and culture of Waterville led to the beloved store\u2019s demise. While residents have enjoyed the new business\u2019 convenience, their satisfaction has come at the expense of Levine\u2019s and many other shops that had previously made their home in Elm City. Although corporate giants such as Walmart initially stood on the outskirts of Waterville, they now reside in the center of the Waterville economy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Levine\u2019s, a small, family owned store, provided Waterville residents with clothing for decades. Established in 1891, Levine\u2019s attracted a loyal customer base during its 105 years in operation and was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2553,"featured_media":446,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[77346,77340,73216,73322],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/built-environment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/built-environment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/built-environment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/built-environment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2553"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/built-environment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=257"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/built-environment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":484,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/built-environment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257\/revisions\/484"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/built-environment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/446"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/built-environment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/built-environment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/built-environment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}