In the death of an institution, or as the BBC called it the end of an era, Woolworths became one of the major casualties of the current recession. The chain planted its roots in the late 1800s in the US and eventually opened its first UK stores in 1909. In 1910 Frank Woolworth, the company’s founder, commissioned the construction of The Woolworth Building in New York City. The building was the tallest in the world until 1930 and continues to be one of the 20 tallest in the city of NY to this day; There was even a limited edition book published in 1913 discribing its splender, called The Woolworth Building.
The company became a staple in both nations and there was even a movie with novelization, The Girl from Woolworths, that came out in 1929. The chain thrived, acquired, and expanded until the 1980s and 90s when it came upon tough times and began closing its North American stores, selling off the Canadian outlets to Wal-Mart and closing its US stores to concentrate on its subsidiary Footlocker. 
For a company to last over 100 years is an amazing feat, and there are numerous books documenting its history … but I think these two I mentioned are two of the most interesting.
