Before Walgreens, Rite Aid and other national chains seemed to be everywhere, there was a drugstore name just about everyone in Upstate New York knew: Fay’s Drugs.
Fay’s got its start in 1958 in the Syracuse area, founded by Henry Panasci Sr. and his son, Henry Panasci Jr. What began as a single neighborhood drugstore grew steadily over the next few decades into one of the largest homegrown retail chains in Upstate New York.
And Fay’s was never just a place to pick up a prescription.
Depending on the store, you could walk in for medicine and come out with school supplies, greeting cards, cosmetics, toys, film, household goods, lawn furniture or sporting equipment. Some of the larger stores carried an amazing variety of merchandise — even boats at certain locations.
That was the thing about Fay’s. You might go in for a prescription and remember you needed a birthday card, film or something for a school project. There was a pretty good chance they had it.
Photography was especially big business. This was long before everyone carried a camera in their pocket, and families were constantly buying rolls of film and dropping them off to be developed. Fay’s became such a major seller of film that at one point the company reportedly rivaled Kodak itself in film sales across Upstate New York.
As Fay’s expanded, it also bought a number of smaller regional drugstore chains. That included Carl’s Drugs, a familiar name in the Rome area. Stores that generations had known under one local name gradually became part of the growing Fay’s chain.
By the 1980s and ’90s, Fay’s had become an Upstate institution, with more than 200 stores spread across New York and neighboring areas. For many communities, the local Fay’s was simply part of everyday life.
Then came the wave of consolidation that changed the drugstore business across the country.
In 1997, Fay’s was sold to J.C. Penney, which at the time also owned the Eckerd drugstore chain. The familiar Fay’s name soon disappeared as the stores were converted to Eckerd. Eckerd itself would later disappear from much of the region as the pharmacy business continued to change hands.
Today, there are probably plenty of people who remember the building where their local Fay’s used to be — and everything they used to buy there.
For those who grew up in Upstate New York, Fay’s was more than a pharmacy. It was one of those stores that seemed to be everywhere for a while, and then suddenly it was gone.
Do you remember where your Fay’s Drugs was?
