End of an Era

I suspect that I feel today how many of my contemporaries have felt when they’ve had to pack up their childhood bedrooms. I grew up as much at Camp & Campus as I did in my house, and although I still somehow never quite developed a love for shopping or fashion, I have so many fond memories of my time in the space my family simply called “the store.”

From the earliest age, I brought toys to play with the salesgirls, the then much-older-than-I high school students who worked at the store after school and on the weekends. As I grew up, the store became a personal hangout, a place where I often went after school when we picked my dad up, or on weekends if I didn’t have other plans. It was place where I, particularly as a teenager, could spent hours, always feeling accepted in a way I didn’t in high school. In that sense, it was a second home.

It was a second closet, too. I am, possibly, the world’s worst shopper, in part because I grew up with access to clothing in a most unconventional way. My version of shopping involved bringing home countless items, eventually trying them on, keeping some and returning others to stock in a much drawn out process. Admittedly, at any given point in time, I likely had more than a dozen garments in my closet that still had Camp & Campus tags on them. I probably still do. I suspect that, with the store closing, I will smile a little bigger each time I come across one of those still unworn items, a bit of newness still, a gift from what is now the past.

It’s almost impossible to think of Camp & Campus without thinking of my dad. It’s not just that the store is a Great Neck institution. He is, too. His parents - my grandparents - opened our family’s first store, The Petite Shop, almost 70 years ago, and Camp & Campus followed a few years later. My dad began working there at 14, and it’s probably no exaggeration to say that every girl who has grown up in Great Neck for the past 6 decades knows him: knows his kindness, knows his customer service, knows his integrity, knows his patience, knows his creativity, and knows his heart. And for everyone who worked at Camp & Campus - those many, many salesgirls over the years – he was often a second father as well as a first boss, and decades later their memories of their time in the store still shines bright.

Camp & Campus will always be a part of my family. One of the biggest gifts of the past several months has been seeing how many former employees and customers alike, including so many of you reading this now, have reached out to say thank you. I am so grateful you have taken the time to show your appreciation, and so incredibly proud of the legacy my father built.

Here’s to the new beginnings that are only possible when we are brave enough to say goodbye to the past. I am so excited to cheer my dad on with whatever comes next!