Jerry, the JGE Guy - THAT'S THE STORY????
Chat328585
man who wore a hard hat named Jerry. He would do these commercials and say
"That's the Stor-eee", lean back and we'd all see his belly button (gross).
Anyhow, alive?
Just curious.
Brad Ferguson
<chat3...@aol.com> wrote:
Jerry Rosenberg's dead. I can't find a date, but it was reported while
I was still in New York, so that makes it before 1991. I think it was
well before then.
JGE stood for Jamaica Gas & Electric. (Jamaica is a neighborhood in
Queens, New York.) He opened his first JGE in an old warehouse of
theirs. He started out selling appliances to people with a union or
civil service card, and expanded into furniture and jewelry. The
collapse of his business is blamed on his health (he had heart
problems), Jerry's too-enthusiastic overexpansion of his operation, and
pressure from Bess Myerson, then the NYC consumer affairs commissioner.
Established merchants hated Jerry, who was among the first of the deep
discounters, and probably the first of them in New York. It was
rumored that Myerson targeted Jerry because the big stores wanted her
to.
After JGE folded, Jerry opened a disco called Jerry's Disco.
danny burstein
>Jerry Rosenberg's dead. I can't find a date, but it was reported while
>I was still in New York, so that makes it before 1991. I think it was
>well before then.
>JGE stood for Jamaica Gas & Electric. (Jamaica is a neighborhood in
>Queens, New York.) He opened his first JGE in an old warehouse of
>theirs. He started out selling appliances to people with a union or
>civil service card, and expanded into furniture and jewelry. The
>collapse of his business is blamed on his health (he had heart
>problems), Jerry's too-enthusiastic overexpansion of his operation, and
>pressure from Bess Myerson, then the NYC consumer affairs commissioner.
>Established merchants hated Jerry, who was among the first of the deep
>discounters, and probably the first of them in New York. It was
>rumored that Myerson targeted Jerry because the big stores wanted her
>to.
On a related note Jerry pushed the end of so-called "fair trade" laws [a]
in NYS. Yes, children, once upon a time a manufacturer could force, under
threat of _gov't action_ , all retailers to sell at the manufacturer's
declared price. (This in addition to cutting them off).
[a] in the great tradition of gov'ts naming laws as the exact
opposite of what they really did, these did nothng to
help consumers. Anymore than, say, the "milk compact" regs.
When JGE came into business all sellers of, say, Sony TV sets, had to
price them the same.
Jerry's initial gimmick of getting around ths was, as he shouted in his
commercials, to require "a union or civil service card at the door, and
you (were) in. Because JGE (was) NOT open to the general public. Only to
union members and their families."
Eventually the folk who benefitted from continuation of the price fixing
forced the ssue into court, and Jerry won.
Hence today far fewer items have a manufacturer advertised price, and with
those that do, such as cars, it's prominently decribed as a "sueggeted
retail price" (MSRP).
>After JGE folded, Jerry opened a disco called Jerry's Disco.
Which, fyi, was located in what had been the old WTFM radio building in
Queens. It's now the hq for a bunch of local weekly newspapers.
danny " and that's the story " burstein
--
_____________________________________________________
Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key
dan...@panix.com
[to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded]
Oogie
No, he wore a graduation cap. Yes, he is dead.
Oogie
Brad Ferguson
<al_r...@yahoo.com> wrote:
He usually (and originally) wore a hard hat. He may have (and probably
did) wear other kinds of hats.