On Tuesday, Nov. 24, JC Penney Co. Inc. announced that it would buy Genovese Drug Stores for $432 million in stock and assume $60 million of debt. The move will add the Genovese stores to Penney's already profitable Eckerd drug store division. The deal will give Penney a greater presence in the New York area, where Melville-based Genovese operates 141 drug stores. The Genovese stores will be renamed Eckerd.

Their friends in the Manhasset area will be happy to know that the Genovese family will not be leaving town and so will the many charities with which they have been associated. Leonard and Gerry Genovese and their children have long been benefactors of St. Christopher-Ottilie, the Viscardi Human Resources Center, Our Lady of Grace and the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation. They are also active members of St. Mary's parish for which Gerry currently runs a spiritual program for women.

Selling the stores was a "bittersweet" decision, according to Gerry Genovese. "Leonard felt like a father to the many wonderful people who worked for him," she said. One consolation is that the Genoveses believe that Eckerd is a "wonderful, moral, upright" company. It has certainly been a successful one. The Genovese chain was begun when Leonard Genovese's father, Joseph, opened his first drug store in Astoria, Queens in 1924. The chain employs 4,400 people.

By contrast, Eckerd, with headquarters in Clearwater, FL, opened its first store in Erie, PA in 1898. The stores now number more than 2,800 in 19 states and employs 83,000 people.

Genovese opened its Manhasset store four years ago, a store whose name will be changed to Eckerd in April when the sale is completed. The chairman of the board of Eckerd is Frank A. Newman, a former resident of Manhasset and parishoner of St. Mary's.