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The Sears department store in Boyle Heights is gone. The Eastside landmark, with its familiar tower visible for miles around, closed its doors for good last month, after being open for nearly 100 years.
The front door of the now-closed Boyle Heights Sears store.
(Leslie Berestein Rojas
LAist)
At one time, the massive, 2-million-square-foot retail complex at Olympic Boulevard and Soto Street was one of several large Sears distribution centers located around the country. It first opened its doors in 1927.
For the generations of Angelenos whose families shopped there — climbing that long flight of stairs at the entrance, inhaling the smell of popcorn, gazing up at the tower’s green neon glow — the Boyle Heights Sears is more than a piece of history. It's inextricably tied to the experience of growing up on the Eastside. And the memories go back many decades.