Macy's Department Store (United States)


Figure 1.--Here are junior suits offered by Macy's in its summer 1940 catalog. There are both blouse suits and jacketed Eton suits.

Macy's is another of the most fabled American department stores. Not only because its current and past success, but because of the classic Americam folm--Miracle on 34th Street. America's most renowned and certainly tallest shopping mile is located in New York. The area spans 25 blocks, anchored at one end by Macy's on Herald Square and at the other by Bloomingdale's on 59th Street, span five avenues west to east and include the country's most renowned concentration of grand, historic department stores. Actually ahalf-dozen of these great American stores survive. They are now widely spaced between hundreds of specialty stores on and off Fifth Avenue. Macy's in 2000 operated Macy's stores along the U.S. East coast alone. It's mamouth New York flagship store fills an entire city. It claims to be the "world's largest store" and probably is. It was founded by Nantucket Quaker Rowland Hussey as a dry goods store in 1858. The owner proclaimed it a full-fledged department store in 1877, at which time it filled a dozen buildings on 14th Street. The New York Macy's now prides itself on its 50 display windows. The six facing Herald Square depict the history of the store's famous Thanksgiving parade. This New York City tradition was extravaganza was inagurted to commemorate the store's 75th anniversary. The windows along 34th Street show scenes from Miracle on 34th Street, the 1947 film classic in which Edmund Gwenn convinces a sceptical city and little girl played by Natalie Wood, that he is Santa. In the film, Gween plays an all too honest department store Santa who reall listens to the children's requests and advises parents to shop for some of them them at, horrors upon horrors--rival Gimbels. The Macy's Santa still presides at the 8th-floor SantaLand, a tranported Alpine village with plenty of twinkling lights, fake snow, hugh lollipops, cuddly bears, and the requisite massive candy canes. Most Macy's and other department stores no longer have their own Santa, but rather Santa is set up in a centralized location in each shopping mall. The former extensive New York Macy's toy department, however, along with the entire Gimbels store are now a part of New York retail history. Macy's in the 1970s as it spread around America really gave up any pretence of being a full-line department store, dropping toys along with furniture and hardware. Actually toy stores have since evolved into mini-department stores.






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Created: 3:53 AM 1/11/2009
Last updated: 3:53 AM 1/11/2009