J.J. Newberry Five and Dime in early Downtown Framingham

Early photograph of J.J. Newberry Five and Dime taken in 1938. Downtown Framingham was THE center for surrounding towns to shop. The advent of developments as Shoppers World in the 1950s and 1960s began the demise of the Downtown as a shopping mecca. The store was located at the corner of Concord and Howard Streets. The building remains today but the third floor was removed. Sad that historic buildings where stripped of detail during the 1950s taste for bland, modern architecture.

J.J. Newberry's was an American five and dime store chain in the 20th century. It was founded in Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, United States, in 1911 by John Josiah Newberry (1877–1954). J.J. Newberry had learned the variety store business by working at S.H. Kress stores for 12 years between 1899 and 1911. There were seven stores in the chain by 1918.

View toward Howard Street on
Concord Street in the 1960s.

The company was a family business. J.J. Newberry was joined in management by his brothers C.T. Newberry and Edgar A. Newberry in 1919, at which time there were 17 stores with yearly sales of $500,000.  At the time of founder J.J. Newberry's death (1954), the chain had 475 stores. By 1961, the company operated 565 stores with total yearly sales of $291 million

JJ Newberry Co. was sold to McCrory Stores in 1972. It continued to operate under the Newberry name as a division of McCrory Stores. McCrory opened stores under the Newberry banner especially in the Northeast and California where the name had a strong presence. The demise of the company became evident following a Chapter 11 Bankruptcy filing in 1992.

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NOTE: In the nineteenth century, the Nobscott Building once stood at the same spot as the JJ Newberry store. The Nobscott Building originally housed the Post Office on the first floor and the District Court on the third floor. (1880)