was a
Boston -based
Chain of
Department Store s owned by
Federated Department Stores . It operated in the
U.S. State s of
Connecticut ,
Massachusetts ,
Maine ,
New Hampshire ,
New York ,
Rhode Island and
Vermont .
Filene's was founded in Boston in
1881 as William Filene's Sons Co., and was one of the founding members of the
Federated Department Stores, Inc. . organization in
1929 . It historically catered to the "carriage-trade." In
1988 , after the leveraged buy-out of
Federated by
Campeau Corp. of
Toronto ,
Canada , the division was sold to
May Department Stores Co. along with
Foley's in the Southwest. It was at this time that Filene's and the equally famous
Filene's Basement were disassociated. Filene's Basement is currently owned by Retail Ventures, Inc.
In
1992 Filene's absorbed G. Fox & Co. of
Hartford, Connecticut , another division of
May Company . The
1990s saw a doubling of the Filene's organization as May invested in new stores and broadened Filene's price and product assortments. In
2002 it assumed operational control of the
Kaufmann's stores in western
New York ,
Pennsylvania ,
Ohio , and
West Virginia .
Effective
August 30 ,
2005 ,
Federated Department Stores completed its previously announced acqusition of
May Department Stores , thus reuniting Federated and Filene's. On February 1, 2006 the Filene's/Kaufmann's organization was dissolved and the management of its stores was assumed by
Macy's East and the new
Macy's Midwest . The store's website was largely consolidated into macys.com during the spring of 2006. By autumn of the same year, the Filene's name and brand will be phased out as
Federated will convert Filene's to the
Macy's masthead. The landmark flagship Filene's department store at Downtown Crossing will close in early 2006 and be consolidated across the street in the existing Macy's store.
The store's Downtown Crossing flagship location was placed on the
National Register Of Historic Places in
1986 .
