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| AI version of the original Dunk & Bright Furniture |
After a month without any new ideas, I decided to cover Dunk & Bright Furniture (O'Dunk & O'Bright during St Patricks season to reflect the founders' Irish roots). The original store on S Salina St and E Bright Ave on Syracuse's south side will be closing in the coming weeks. Many people assume the business as a whole is coming to an end, not realising that a new store has opened in the former Great Northern Mall in Clay where Sibleys, Kaufmanns and Macys had been. To boot, Dunk & Bright have gone outside CNY to the Rochester area and opened in South Town Plaza on Jefferson Road (NY 252) in Henrietta, where Burlington, kmart, Freddys, and PriceRite used to be. It's new to most people there, and they're pessimistic about another furniture store there, with Marketplace Mall down the road being closed, and brick and mortar retail in general facing decline in recent years between online dominance and the economy. It's not uncommon to fear the unfamiliar. Hometown rival Raymour & Flanigan are in WNY and have expanded across the eastern seaboard, so it can be done. Dunk & Bright might just stick to the two stores at this stage. I don't think they want to be a big chain like that.
I've only gone to the flagship once decades ago. It seemed to take time to look at everything, being the largest furniture store in the whole state, tucked into a part of town that now doesn't have as much money. With Dunk & Bright entering their 100th year, it had opened in a more innocent time. The fire department are said to be buying some of the building. Staff and remaining stock will be moved up the new I-81 (still I-481 for now) and NY 481 to the new store, where the mall is being done up in the wake of Microns building site just a few miles away. It's a slam Dunk and the future looks Bright for one of the areas oldest local businesses. There's also outlet store A. Bright Furniture in Westvale Plaza, which had moved several blocks from Wegmans Plaza on Onondaga Blvd from the former Chase-Pitkin and Big Lots turned Goodwill. So much for Goldbergs and Besdins (one from before my time I looked up).
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| AI version of store's early days nearly a century ago |
