CHICAGO – It seemed as though someone confused the sidewalk outside the Best Buy in Maple Grove, Minn., for one of the region’s frozen lakes.

Right outside the electronic retailer’s doors was a temporary shelter, commonly used in ice fishing to brave bone-chilling cold. Erected Thanksgiving night, the ramshackle structure housed a determined shopper, who was angling more for bargains the day after Turkey Day than perch.

He was the first among dozens who braved the cold in the Minneapolis suburb as they awaited Best Buy’s 6 a.m. opening.

“I couldn’t believe it,” said Steve Gremmels, the store’s assistant manager. “I pulled up at 2:30 a.m., and the guy said he had set up the ice-house warming station about 11 the night before. The people in line behind him had brought a grill and were making brats and hot dogs.”

Welcome to “Black Friday.” For years it was considered the busiest shopping day of the year – a day when retailers exhaled a sigh of relief that the busy season was here and profitability was in sight. In recent years, though, other parts of the holiday shopping season gained steam and took over the busiest-day title.

Now department stores, discounters and boutiques are sweetening the pot for post-Thanksgiving shoppers and luring more people.

“There are a lot of things being done out there to bring the customer into the stores early on Black Friday,” said Dan Hess, chief executive of research firm Merchant Forecast. “They all lead up to other purchases that aren’t as promotional to make the weekend more profitable than one might think.”

Big bucks are always spent on this day – and estimates are that 3 percent to 5 percent more will be spent than the $7.2 billion last year, according to the retail monitor ShopperTrak.

Judging from anecdotal evidence, it looked as though that target might be within reach.

Chaos was the norm at a San Leandro, Calif., Wal-Mart where a screaming match broke out among the weary waiting in the layaway line.

“We expect obscene, offensive, crushing crowds And I mean “obscene’ in the nicest way,” said Stephen Hartkopf, Disney Store manager in San Francisco.

Throughout this outlet of the world’s biggest retailer in the East San Francisco Bay region, more than 1,000 people packed their carts elsewhere with portable DVD players, color TVs and assorted merchandise. Joe Lima was there with his wife, Vicki, on her annual day-after-Thanksgiving shopping extravaganza.

“It’s a madhouse,” he said. “It’s sweaty, it’s hard work and it’s worse than working.”

But he’s there for the savings, which he thinks will tally about $500 when he’s done paying off two carts full of items such as a DVD player, stereo equipment and a dart board.

“We’ve been in the store six hours already,” Lima said. “I’ve never been shopping for six hours ever in my life.”

At a Sears store in Evansville, Ind., manager Alan Adams said his workers were wearing Craftsman safety glasses to protect themselves from the chaos as 30 to 35 people were lined up at the store’s 30 cash registers by 8 a.m. – two hours after he let them through the door.

“The products are just flying out of here,” Adams said. “It’s probably the best “Black Friday’ in recent years.”

Gloria Speigle was in Union Square in San Francisco at 5 a.m., ready to pick up coats, bedding and a cashmere sweater at Macy’s.

Speigle was among the early birds who found “door-buster” sales peppered throughout department stores and specialty retail stores, offering shoppers extra price breaks as rewards for being among the first to open their eyes and their wallets to the post-Thanksgiving fervor.

“I didn’t sleep last night,” she said. “I heard (Macy’s) opened at 5, but I would have been here at 2 if it had opened then. I like to shop without the crowds.”

Lucky for Disney Store manager Stephen Hartkopf, that’s not always the case. The entrance to the Union Square store – one of four Disney flagships – is chock full of pink Princess dolls and accessories, outdone only by “The Incredibles” movie merchandise.

“We expect obscene, offensive, crushing crowds,” Hartkopf said. “And I mean “obscene’ in the nicest way.”

Some retailers, though, made it through without offering discounts.

This year more than ever, retailers tried to corral shoppers into the stores early, and got the ball rolling several months ago on holiday planning. For some, it permitt ed them to bypass the Black Friday bargains.

At Bloomingdale’s in New York, crowds stormed in even though they weren’t likely to see deep discounts. Michael Gould, chief executive of the unit of Federated Department Stores, said he did away with big giveaways this weekend. One reason is Bloomingdale’s already booked the best shopping day ever in store history eight days ago.

“Its’ just very exciting to have that kind of day a week before Thanksgiving,” he said. “And then we had a spectacular sales day on Wednesday. We beat last year and completely destroyed the plan without a promotional event the day before Thanksgiving – the business was spectacular.”

In Chicago, the chilly sidewalks on State Street were packed with people, a sharp contrast to the nearly deserted streets of the nearby financial and government districts.

The crowds were particularly thick in front of the windows and inside the flagship Marshall Field’s, a unit of May Department Stores, and probably Chicago’s most famous department store. Snow White was the theme that seemed to be drawing families by the throngs.

Meanwhile, over on north Michigan Avenue – also known as the Magnificent Mile – the packed sidewalks were made even more impassable by an onslaught of panhandlers and product pitchmen.

The latter were offering passers-by everything from $100 off a Motorola phone to samples of Purell hand sanitizer to free tape measures, courtesy of Bank of America’s home equity line of credit.

A little farther up the street, one shopper, Tim Hoag, who came in from Tecumseh, Mich., was pretty much tuckered out by noon. Sitting on the fence in front of Nike’s Niketown stores, Hoag appeared to have thrown in the towel.

“Most people are just going to get gift cards this year (from me),” he said.

Though the term Black Friday has been around for decades, its true meaning no longer holds the same sway. It used to be the launch of the critical shopping period when retailers shifted into profitability for the year. And for some, that turn from the “red” into the “black” actually did occur on what was once the busiest of all shopping days.

Last year, Black Friday crowds returned to take the top spot in the busiest-shopping-day category – knocking the Saturday before Christmas from its No. 1 perch. It’s unclear whether that will happen again this year, but there’s little question the day after Thanksgiving is still highly symbolic.

“Black Friday is not as big a dollar day as it is a key day to take the temperature for the season,” said Merchant Forecast’s Hess. Indeed, retailers get a very good feel for what the holiday will bring and how much slack holiday shoppers will allow their purse strings.

“We believe the retailer who wins that weekend wins the holiday season,” said Bill White, executive vice president of retail operations for Sears Roebuck & Co.

Either way, the weekend will cap November’s retail sales, which analysts and economists are expecting will be robust.

But Black Friday isn’t for everyone.

Back in San Leandro, at the Home Depot parking lot, Corey Anderson and his wife, Ute, were buying their Christmas tree in what was a relatively barren store. Christmas gift shopping was the last thing on their minds as they stuck to a firm commitment to avoid lines and crowds.

“We’re going straight home after this,” Anderson said. “We’re not going anywhere near Wal-Mart or Penney’s or any of those other places today. “This is a great day to kick back and relax and read the paper and avoid the crowds.”

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AP-NY-11-26-04 1738EST