They will gather in a room lined with mannequins and ladies' dresses, old photographs and display cases, precious remnants of the once- great institutions they loved. They will meet and greet, nibble on desserts and sip coffee and tea. But mostly they will remember what many recall as the greatest experience of their lives.

They are the former employees of Baltimore's downtown department stores, exiles from Howard Street when Howard Street was Howard Street: a commercial center lined with classy stores and patronized by women in hats and white gloves.

That era is long gone, but its employees remain -- like members of some proud but long-shuttered sorority house -- and they will reunite next Sunday and recall the great names once more: Hutzler's, Hochschild Kohn, and Stewart's.

"I just fell in love with Hutzler's and the people and the merchandise," recalls Shirley Bukowski, 83, of Essex, one of several hundred or more former department store workers expected to attend the event. "I still sit here and think of that store.

"I think of what merchandise was on every floor and the elevator attendants who called it out, floor by floor. Today, I feel such a loss because I can't find anything quite like it anymore."

Much of Baltimore still mourns the passing of its family-owned department stores, the last of which closed more than 13 years ago. They represented the economic vitality and sophistication of a thriving, modern city, but just as important, they traded in a kind of gentility and level of personal service that is rarely encountered in the modern mall or shopping center.

Nobody feels that loss quite as keenly as the sales clerks, the warehousemen, the waitresses, the executives and the thousands of others who made a living there. Their investment in Howard Street was far more meaningful than mere bricks and mortar -- and ultimately more lasting, too.

That's one of the things Melissa Martens discovered when she set out to create an exhibit to explore and celebrate the Jewish-owned department stores of downtown. The resulting display at the Jewish Museum of Maryland has proven so popular that its planned 10-month run was extended from October 2001 to this coming Feb. 2. This Sunday's reception, open to all former city department store employees, will be the show's last hurrah.

"The feelings people have about these stores are very powerful," says Martens, a curator at the Lloyd Street museum. "People would tell me, 'I learned everything I needed to know about life from Hochschild Kohn's.' "

Names linger on

Martens, a Philadelphia native, conceived of the exhibit nearly five years ago while walking down Howard Street and seeing the names that were still inscribed in many of the buildings. With the efforts to redevelop the downtown's west side already in the works, she thought the time was right to explore that aspect of the city's heritage.

What she discovered was that Baltimore was far from the first city to have a department store -- Paris, London, New York and Chicago had them by the Civil War years. Baltimore's first, Joel Gutman & Co., didn't open until Sept. 27, 1886.

Before then, she notes, Baltimore shopped in specialty stores and the act of shopping was businesslike and purposeful. Department stores brought many different kinds of products and trades under a single roof, and created the concept of browsing, filling the needs of a growing middle class seeking the luxuries and fashion that had previously been the province of the rich.

The arrival of these veritable palaces of commerce signaled a coming-of-age, an elevation to big-city status. The fact that they were Jewish-owned was a natural progression -- immigrant Jews brought with them a retail tradition from European cities. While the stores themselves hardly flouted that heritage, they provided job opportunities for Baltimore's burgeoning Jewish population.

But as she researched her subject, Martens found her most fertile resources were the Howard Street workers and their memories. They spoke to her of their personal loyalties to the families who owned the stores, of how important Howard Street became as the city's social center, and how the social issues of the time, particularly segregation and women's rights, played out on the retail stage.

"Ultimately, these were feminine arenas," says Martens. "They were created as enclaves for women to shop in a city that was seen as dirty, crowded and not safe. But they also provided an acceptable occupation for unmarried women."

For women like Shirley Bukowski, Howard Street was a revelation. She was raised in blue-collar Highlandtown on the east side of the city. Walking into Hutzler's in 1937 (where she'd been hired as a cashier) seemed to her like walking into Buckingham Palace.

"I went to work at Hutzler's at 18 and there was a whole other world uptown," she says. "So many of my friends never left Eastern Avenue, and never knew about what else is out there."

Officials at the museum thought it only natural to hold a reception for former workers and ran advertisements announcing the reunion earlier this month. Already, more than a hundred have accepted -- and organizers suspect far more will attend.

Among those who will be there is Theresa Anderson, whose first job was making sandwiches at the Hutzler's fountain shop across Saratoga from the main building. It was one of the few department store jobs available to African-Americans in 1943. She retired in 1981 still making sandwiches -- and 22 years later, can't quite bring herself to eat one, even when someone else prepares it.

Baltimore's first black department store sales clerk wasn't hired until the early 1960s (at Hochschild Kohn). Black customers were routinely discriminated against -- they couldn't return or exchange clothing, for instance (it was often marked "final sale" by clerks), but Anderson doesn't bear a grudge.

It was simply typical of the times, she says. "They should have integrated before, but that's all past. It [segregation] wasn't just there, it was everywhere."

Far more painful for her was watching Hutzler's slide down in quality under corporate ownership in the final years. "I was glad to get out of there. It wasn't the same place," she says.

Anderson and others recall the stores as a kind of extended family. Owners often knew their workers by their first names. There were company parties and picnics, and many other benefits.

While salaries were not great, the paternalism bred fierce loyalties. Hutzler's workers didn't usually cross the street to join Hochschild Kohn or vice versa.

"These were not well paid jobs, but people felt they were well treated," says Walter Sondheim, 94, who retired as a vice president at Hochschild Kohn in 1970. "We were good people to work for. You couldn't make a lot of money but it was a good, secure job."

Marjorie Katzenstein Greene-baum of Pikesville worked in the downtown Hecht's advertising department laying out newspaper ads a half-century ago. Today, relatively few people realize that Hecht's began its life as a Baltimore store, originally called Samuel Hecht & Sons near Lexington Market 130 years ago.

She still has a photograph from her job in the early 1950s -- she's sitting behind her drafting table -- and remembers feeling her work was important and that she "was really doing something."

Like many of her era, she stopped working when she married and had children. But she was pleased to read about the reunion and hopes to see a few familiar faces.

"It was a fabulous time," says Greenebaum.

Agnes Crowley, 83, of Catonsville remembers her job at Hochschild Kohn's credit office in 1946 as the first real one of her life. She was a single mother raising two young daughters. She took the streetcar downtown. The days were long.

"My name and overtime became synonymous," she says.

'We all stay in touch'

Martens believes Howard Street peaked between 1920 and 1950. Its decline is generally traced to 1968, when racial unrest and the beginnings of middle-class flight from the city began to take their toll. But so did corporate ownership, consolidation and, ultimately, the public's preference for bargains over service -- the Wal-Mart-ization of America.

Rotha Freeman worked at Hutzler's, chiefly at the chain's Lombard Street warehouse, until the very end. Since then, she's worked for a major health insurance company and a lumberyard. But she's never been happier than her time at Hutzler's.

She remembers the Christmas parties and picnics, the cakes and covered dishes they shared on special occasions. She plans to bring her photo album.

"From day one, we were a big, happy family," says Freeman, 52, of North Baltimore. "We all stay in touch."

Indeed, Hutzler's employees have held reunions in the past. But they suspect this will be the first-ever reunion of workers from all the downtown stores.

It isn't as if the various clerks and sales people, executives and buyers will know each other -- Howard Street veterans might have sometimes patronized competitors but they rarely had time to socialize outside their own store. Still, their experiences are remarkably similar -- the hard work and long hours, the satisfaction, the close-knit community, the pride they shared for these grand emporiums.

"You learned so much from these fine people," says Sonia Schnaper, 79, who first came to work at Hochschild Kohn in June of 1941, the day after she graduated from Forest Park High School. "The owners made you feel like you were wonderful and perfect. They were so gracious. It was such an elegant surrounding. It was the most wonderful experience of my life, bar none."

Memories

What: A reunion of former Baltimore department store employees.

When: Sunday, Jan. 26, from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m.

Where: Jewish Museum of Maryland, 15 Lloyd St.

What: Ceremonies will include remarks from museum personnel and some store VIPs. There will be piano music, a memorabilia table and a chance to videotape your memories.

Why: To commemorate the museum's exhibit, "Enterprising Emporiums: The Jewish Department Stores of Downtown Baltimore," which closes Feb. 2.

RSVP: If possible, at 410-732-6400, Ext. 14, but all are welcome to attend.

Museum

The Jewish Museum of Maryland is open Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, noon to 4 p.m. Admission is $5 for nonmember adults and $3 for children.

More information is available at the Web site, www.jewishmuseummd.org.