The Quad at Whittier was named for a four-sided open-air concourse that no longer exists, enclosed decades ago and demolished after that. Yet, the name still appears on storefronts along Whittier Boulevard today.
Two Mornings in March 1953
The Shopping Bag supermarket opened first, on March 12, 1953, with 33,900 square feet on the corner of Whittier Boulevard and Painter Avenue.
Then the next morning, Ezra Hinshaw and store manager Jack Powell and a Chamber of Commerce man named Ralph Thynnes came out for the opening of a two-level, 43,000-square-foot Hinshaw’s department store right next door.
Two consecutive mornings, two anchor stores, and suddenly, southeast Whittier had something it hadn’t had before…