Department Stores?

[just_me]

I haven't been there since 79-81 maybe. Macy's was one of the biggest meat providers in the NYC area and they had great butchers at their meat counter on one of the lowest floors. Near by was a deli counter and they did box lunch sandwiches that were very good. I just remember being surprised to find the butcher and meat department!

I worked in the advertising dept. at Macy's during the 70s. Back then it was on the 15 floor (nine floors of store and the rest were offices and one side of the building is taller than the other). Macy's was a special place. They had a great meat dept. and bakery dept. They sold just about everything in that store. I remember when they turned the old "Macy's basement" into The Cellar and also added a PJ Clarke's restaurant.

I was working there when they had their big fire and we had to evacuate down the stairs until we got to a floor under the fire and could take the escalators.

BTW, my first job after college was as a Santa's Helper in Gimbel's just a couple blocks from Macy's.

Some great pictures here:

http://tinyurl.com/52s4r3

 

[dhermann1]

Macy's is much fun, but sometimes such a mad house! What makes me really nuts is trying to get across the street right there at 34th and Broadway at the height of the Christmas shopping season. What a mob of humanity!
But I've always found the main level at the store to be just a beautiful space. I love seeing the tops of those Art Deco columns above all the hubbub of people and merchandise.

 

[MrBern]

Macy's is much fun, but sometimes such a mad house! What makes me really nuts is trying to get across the street right there at 34th and Broadway at the height of the Christmas shopping season. What a mob of humanity!
But I've always found the main level at the store to be just a beautiful space. I love seeing the tops of those Art Deco columns above all the hubbub of people and merchandise.

Yes, that is a frustrating cluster.
Just think how much worse it wouldve been if Mayor Bloomberg had built a new Football stadium near there. And he was hoping to use that as a lure for the Olympic Games.

I like pointing out the wooden escalators in Macys.

 

[MrBern]

BTW, my first job after college was as a Santa's Helper in Gimbel's just a couple blocks from Macy's.

Brings to mind the age old question about competitors: Does Macys tell Gimbels?

 

[BinkieBaumont]

"Biba" Kensington high street

The high point in Department store design Would have to be "Biba" in Kensington hight street in London in the 1970s


http://www.alwynwturner.com/bigbiba/intro.html

http://www.bibacollection.co.uk/history.htm

 

[Lilibet]

It seems that every major mall in every major city has a Macy*s!
What happened to all the great regional department stores?

Whenever I traveled to different cities across this country I would visit the local department stores. These stores no longer exist. So who's the culprit?
Macy*s and it's parent company, Federated Department Stores.

It all started in 1988 and came to a screeching halt in the fall of 2006.
Do you have any fond memories of these defunct regional shopping venues?

Here are the local victims.....
....

3)I. Magnin a San Francisco, California-based high fashion and specialty luxury department store. Over the course of its existence, it expanded across the West into Southern California and the adjoining states of Arizona,
Oregon, and Washington.

All these historic regional stores are gone and have been replaced with the Macy*s or the more upscale Bloomingdale's name.

I grew up going to the original Magnin's. My grandmother used to take me there as a little girl, and I shopped there until the store closed for good. I even bought my wedding dress there.

Federated bought them out years and years before Macy's bought out Federated, and started the dumbing-down then. My grandmother called them "I. Macy's" after that, because the quality had slipped a bit then and it was less personal, less dedicated, and more like Macy's.

Once Federated and Macy's merged, the store was shut down completely. Macy's stripped out the Lalique chandeliers from the 3rd Floor couture salon, the gilded Chinoiserie panels and floor-to ceiling marble from the ladies' lounge, and the Art Deco fixtures from the cosmetics hall. I was in the the store on its last day, and there were women wandering all over the store, taking pictures and some older ladies were crying a bit. They replaced the real pine Christmas wreaths that used to hang in every window with neon (!) ones. The street level is now a Louis Vuitton store, and the upstairs is the Macy's furniture store.

Oh, and my mom tells me that I Magnin is now the house brand for the lingerie carried in Bloomingdales.

 

[BinkieBaumont]

Big Biba

"A Few Pages originally published in "Honey" Magazine October 1973!, Biba Building is now Marks N Sparks in Kensigton"

 

[grundie]

There's a department store in my home town of Derry in Northern Ireland called 'Austins'. The owners claim it to be the worlds oldest 'independent' department store. It was founded in 1830 and is still family run to this day.

The current building was completed in 1907 and is very Edwardian...

Sadly, the interior is boring and their range is very contemporary. They don't sell anything that would appeal to our tastes. Still, the building is nice.

The next time I'm up there I'll see if I can get copies of any old interior shots. The owners are very helpful in that regard.

 

[John in Covina]

There's a department store in my home town of Derry in Northern Ireland called 'Austins'. The owners claim it to be the worlds oldest 'independent' department store. It was founded in 1830 and is still family run to this day. The current building was completed in 1907 and is very Edwardian...

Sadly, the interior is boring and their range is very contemporary. They don't sell anything that would appeal to our tastes. Still, the building is nice. The next time I'm up there I'll see if I can get copies of any old interior shots. The owners are very helpful in that regard.

You might comsider asking them about the idea of a fashions of the past as a display somewheres as a link to their auspicious historical building and company.

 

[flat-top]

But as built up as it is, the higher you go in that store, the "older" it seems to get. Rickety "wooden" escalators, and simpler set ups.

Having actually worked for Macy's since this post (and thankfully not anymore), I can tell you that those wooden escalators are considered a Historical Landmark. According to a plaque hanging in an employee hallway, they are also the first escalators ever (this does not come up in my internet research however). Apparently when they break down, repairing them is a nightmare.
Oh yeah, in Herald Square there is an entire floor devoted to housing the dogs that are released at night to make sure the store is cleared out.

 

[Sarge]

The two juggernaut department stores from my hometown of Fort Wayne, Indiana were Wolf & Dessauer and Murphy's. Unfortunately, neither of them are still around today.

Wolf & Dessauer



G.C. Murphy Company

 

[Tomasso]

in Herald Square there is an entire floor devoted to housing the dogs that are released at night to make sure the store is cleared out.

Yeah, I heard about those....Dobermans right?

 

[flat-top]

Yeah, I heard about those....Dobermans right?

Some kind of Russian something or others. I always thought "releasing the dogs" was a retail myth, but in Herald Square it's not.