Even though I haven't shopped there in years -- maybe even a decade -- I'll be sad to see Gordmans move from their current location near 48th and Vine to north of North 27th and Superior. Why? Because I have many fond memories of shopping at Richman Gordman with my mom. You may think that's an odd thing for a guy to remember about his childhood, but not if you ever had the chance to play on their in-store playground. It was fantastic. Moms would dump their kids off at the playground while they shopped, and the kids would fend for themselves for as long as mom was gone. I can't remember all the features of the play area, but I very clearly remember the big elephant slide. Good times.
They used to have a great toy section, too. I remember using birthday money to buy a couple Flipsiders from Richman Gordman, and they even carried Atari 2600 and Nintendo games for a while.
So ... who wants to fill 100,000 square feet of soon-to-be empty retail space in a not-so-great-for-retail location on Vine Street? Anybody?
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I remember that playground very well! There was a kangaroo, a hippopotamus, the elephant, and one other animal. And it always smelled a little like pee in that room, but it was still a fun time.
Although I don’t remember the smell my Mom mentions it every time someone reminisces about Richman Gordman.
Good times!
I don’t remember the smell either. Which is just as well. 😊
I think it’s time the city started giving incentives for companies to either rebuild or refit vacant big box spaces in the middle of town and on the flip side, the city should absolutely not be giving these guys anything if they want to build new on the outskirts. If anything, they should be forking over more than they currently do because the constant expansion stretches our (already high) property taxes even higher.
This is hillarious as I was reminiscing about this on the radio the other day when my co-host said he didn’t remember it. That elephant seemed like it was 20 feet tall, and it’s innards were just cavernous. I think I’d be disappointed to see it now.
Two other things about the old RG: First, It provided almost all of my early exposure to the old NES gaming system. My parents would shop and I’d be right there, laying into Hogan’s Alley and Kung Fu.
Also, in about 1987ish, that store decided to liquidate it’s sporting goods department and put 75% off. The news traveled as virally as it could in the mid-80s, but we bought like 4 softball gloves, 3 bats, a bunch of other crap too. It’s still probably my families best ever bargain triumph. We still hve some of those softball gloves.
I grew up about 70 miles outside of Lincoln, but I remember at least a couple visits to the Gordman’s animal playground. My mom was more than happy to leave my sister and I alone to fend for ourselves there with the other kids, but this left me torn. On one hand I DESPERATELY wanted to spend as much time as possible going down the elephant slide. On the other hand, I was TERRIFIED at the prospect of being left with all of these other unsupervised kids.
Does anyone have photos of that place??
Mr. W - good news - your slide can be yours, on ebay:
http://item.ebay.com/320514554143
Woah. I can’t tell you how awesome that is.
After you win it, be sure to post the photos for us. Good luck to you!
I found it on ebay for $800! It looks just like I remember it
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