Many thanks to Alex Chernoff’s daughters, Sharon Chernoff Zweigbaum and Marsha Chernoff Golob, for information about this fondly-remembered local St. Louis Park business.
The Lilac Way Shoe Store, located in the Lilac Way Shopping Center at Highway 100 and Excelsior Blvd., was first owned by William B. Cusack, opening on December 1, 1947. Alex Chernoff purchased the store in about 1949 or 1950.
Alex’s brothers Hy and Sam Chernoff served in World War II, but not Alex. He met his future wife Seema Litsky from Winnipeg in about 1939 when she visited the Twin Cities on a vacation, and he was smitten. He commuted to Winnipeg for weekend visits and they were married in in Seema’s mother’s Winnipeg living room in October 1940. They came to live with Alex’s parents on St. Paul’s West side, but when Seema became pregnant they moved to 565 Portland Ave. Daughter Sharon Rita was born in February 1942. Second daughter Marsha Ann was born in September 1947.
In the 1930s and ‘40s, Alex worked for Al Mains at both Tradehome Shoe Store in St. Paul and Main Shoe Store, Minneapolis. Donald Mains, son of Al Mains, remembers working as a teen for Chernoff, in one of these stores. When Chernoff purchased the store at the Lilac Way Shopping Center it took many, many years for him to pay off the store. He commuted every day from St. Paul until 1952 when he bought a small house at 2737 Jersey Ave. in St. Louis Park.
Daughter Sharon tells us that Alex never got rich from his shoe store, but he was revered as a man with a warm heart. If someone was too poor to pay, he often gave them the shoes. Everyone loved him and he served three generations in St. Louis Park.
People to this day remember how they had their feet X-Rayed, perhaps by one of the Adrian Special machines shown below. Although it may not have been the safest machine in hindsight, kids got a real thrill out of seeing the bones in their feet!
Other fond memories are popping balloons when there was a sale, revealing a discount coupon within, and getting the prize inside the “golden egg” laid by the mechanical Red Goose. Many, many former children recall their first experience at getting these fun and mysterious treats.
Unfortunately, Chernoff found he had been cheated by an employee for years. He reorganized as a corporation just before he sold the business to Norman Kirschner in 1972. Kirschner changed the name to Norm’s Lilac Way Shoes, and was an active member of the Lilac Way Merchants’ Association. He operated the store until at least 1976 but eventually declared bankruptcy.
Alex Chernoff died in September 1984 at age 77. Many of the merchants, policemen, and customers came to his funeral. The group of men had enjoyed coffee together each morning for years at the soda fountain at Snyder Drug Store at Miracle Mile.
