The R. H. Macy & Co. Annex - 56 West 14th Street

 

In July 1871, when Albert Levi broke ground for a four-story brick store at 56 West 14th Street, just east of Sixth Avenue, the district had transformed from high-class private homes to boarding houses and stores.  On Sixth Avenue, steps away from Levi's site, Rowland Hussey Macy had operated his fancy goods store since 1858.  Macy had started out with a small shop, living above it with his family.  Starting in 1863 he expanded into neighboring buildings until his mish-mash of eleven buildings would engulf the Sixth Avenue blockfront from 13th to 14th Streets and around both corners.

Astoundingly, only two months after Levi's building plans were filed, the brick building on 14th Street was completed.  On September 4, 1871 an announcement appeared in the New York Herald:

Albert Levi has removed from his old established stand, 321 Canal street, to the more centrally situated store, 56 West Fourteenth Street, where he will open on Tuesday, the 5th inst., under the firm of Albert Levi & Bro., with an entire new stock of fine watches, jewelry, sterling silver ware,  &c.

By the last decade of the century, the district known as the Ladies' Mile was lined with lavish emporiums.  The Sixth Avenue elevated, opened in 1878, conveniently transported women shoppers to the district.  The former Albert Levi & Bro. building had become home to Rothschild's millinery and fancy goods store by 1893.

Nathan and Isidor Straus had controlling interest in Macy's at the time (Roland Macy had died in 1877).  Like Macy, they continued to expand the massive Sixth Avenue store, adding two annexes on West 13th Street in 1892 and 1894.  And they were not finished.

In April 1897, the architectural firm of Schickel & Ditmars filed plans for a $90,000, "nine-story-and-basement brick store" on the site of the old Albert Levi building for Nathan and Isidore Straus.  The construction costs of this latest annex would translate to about $3 million in 2023.

The slim limestone-clad structure--what would be called a sliver building today--was the tallest in the neighborhood.  Its effervescent Beaux Arts style design included handsome carved angel heads above the storefront that flanked a panel announcing the store's name.  The rusticated second and third floors featured a vast arched window and a French style balcony above a carved cartouche.  Massive snarling lions' heads supported fruit-carved brackets beneath the ninth floor balcony.  A copper cornice crowned the edifice.

Until recently, the blank panel held faded but legible lettering that read "Macy's."

As had been the case with Albert Levi's building, construction proceeded at a lighting-fast pace.  On December 13, 1897, eight months after the plans were filed, an R. H. Macy & Co. advertisement in The Evening Post was titled "Christmas Presents for Everybody."  It said in part:

Our New Entrance to the main store (open to-day) is another step of progress in our constant effort to improve our facilities and add to the comfort of our customers.  It is at 56 West 14th Street and opens into our Newest Building, a beautiful and artistic addition to the architectural attractions of 14th Street.

The ad said that at the Macy Annex, "You can shop there all day with perfect comfort."

In June 1902, R. H. Macy & Co. hired the architectural firm of De Lemos & Cordes to do $50,000 in renovations to the West 14th Street building.  (The architects had designed the massive department store building of Macy's greatest competitor, Siegel-Cooper, on Sixth Avenue in 1896.)  The New-York Tribune noted that "new corridors and staircase are to be put in."  The tremendous outlay is surprising, considering that in July 1901 R. H. Macy & Co. had announced it would erect a massive, 1.5 million-square-foot department store significantly north of the Ladies' Mile, on Herald Square.

On January 29, 1903 the New-York Tribune reported that Nathan Straus had sold 56 West 14th Street, "formerly the annex to R. H. Macy & Co's. store in Fourteenth-st.," to coffee importer Hermann Sielcken.  Sielcken had paid "more than a million dollars" for the structure, or 32 times that much in 2023 dollars.  "Mr. Sielcken said that he had no intention of using the building for his business," said that article explaining that he purchased the property as an investment.  "The building is practically new and is one of the tallest buildings in West Fourteenth-st."

The article noted that Henry Seigel, R. H. Macy & Co.'s nemesis, intended "to erect a large drygoods store" on the site of the former Macy's main store.  "He was asked last night if he would lease or had leased the annex, but he declined to talk on this matter."  The secret came out two days later.  The Chicago Tribune reported on January 31, "Henry Siegel authorized a statement to the effect that he had leased the ten [sic] story building running through from 56 West Fourteenth street to 55 to 61 West Thirteenth street, from Herman Sielcken, who purchased the property a few days ago."  Siegel's 21-year lease came with the staggering rent of $70,000 per year.

Women in shirtwaists and exuberant millinery pass the former Macy's Annex around 1904.  from the collection of the Library of Congress.

Ironically, a month later Herman Sielcken sold the building to the Fourteenth Street Realty Co.  Two of its directors were Edmund E. Wise, a nephew of the Strauses and attorney for R. H. Macy & Co., and William W. Fitzhugh, the firm's auditor.  

If Seigel originally intended to demolish all of the old Macy's properties, it never happened.  Ruined by scandal, falsification of books, and misappropriation of company funds, he was imprisoned in 1914.

As the fashionable shopping district continued to migrate northward, West 14th Street became a center of lower-end stores.  In February 1918, with World War I still raging, the U. S. Army's Quartermaster Department announced it would lease 56 West 14th Street "for distribution purposes."

Two years later, on October 17, 1920, The New York Times reported that Acker, Merrall & Condit had purchased and moved into the former Macy & Co. annex building.  "More than $200,000 has been spent in remodeling the structure, and the firm's removal there is an important commercial change and addition to the one-time shopping section of Fourteenth Street," said that article.

Acker, Merrall & Condit had long roots, going back to a business founded in 1820.  The firm imported luxury commodities, like fine wines, "fancy groceries," and cigars.  The ground floor was leased to Kanter's Department Store, which dealt in a variety of goods from "gent's furnishings," to dry goods, shoes and furs.  The store remained through 1926, after which a Sears, Roebuck & Co. branch occupied the space for two years.

Although it retained possession of the property, in 1931 Acker, Merrall & Condit relocated.  The Hale Desk Company signed a ten year lease starting on May 1 that year for all but the ground floor space.  The firm used the upper floors, where well-dressed women had once shopped for kid gloves and feathery hats, as an office furniture warehouse through 1939.

That year The New York Sun reported that the Noma Electric Corporation had purchased the building, calling it "an important transaction in the Fourteenth street section."  Founded in 1925 by Albert Sadacca, the firm was an offshoot of his family's Christmas light manufacturing company, the National Outfit Manufacturers Association.  Reorganized in 1953 as Noma Lites, Inc., it was reportedly the largest maker of Christmas lighting decorations in the world at one point.  The firm remained in the building until its closure in 1965. 

A close-up of the 1904 photograph shows the original first floor appearance and a panel placed over the Macy's sign above the entrance.  (Note the little boy in the sailor suit.)  from the collection of the Library of Congress (cropped)

The building next became home to TICO Plastics, here until 1971, and art book publishers Clarke & Way, Inc. which closed in 1970.  The painted Macy's sign above the storefront survived, protected for some years by an added panel.  By 2011, when the building was granted individual landmark designation, it was greatly faded, but still legible.  Recently, however, the signage that had survived since 1897 was painted over.

Although the ground floor has been brutalized, the upper portion of the former R. H. Macy & Co. Annex building remains essentially intact.

photographs by the author

many thanks to historian Anthony Bellov for suggesting this post

no permission to reuse the content of this blog has been granted to LaptrinhX.com

The Little Holdout at No. 461 7th Avenue

In the years just prior to the outbreak of civil war, modest homes and stores were erected in the area that would a century later become New York’s Garment Center.  On the corner of Seventh Avenue and 35^th Street a four-story brick dwelling appeared which most likely always had a commercial space on the first floor, numbered No. 461 Seventh Avenue.  The residential floors above were accessed by a side door at No. 168 West 35^th Street.

In 1860, an article titled “An Astrological Neighborhood,” in Broughton’s Monthly Planet Reader mentioned “About Twentieth street and Seventh avenue are clustered a galaxy of astrologists and clairvoyants.”  Among the seers it listed was Professor Nelson, at No. 168 West 35^th Street.

The National Quarterly Review, 1862 (copyright expired)

It would appear that already the upper floors were operated as a boarding or lodging house.  (The difference in the two were the meals offered in boarding houses; cheaper lodging houses rented only rooms.)  In 1862 veterinarian William Bretherton listed his practice here.  At least by 1876 Frederick Trope ran his grocery business at street level; while among those living upstairs that year was James Hoey, a clerk, Patrick Gillespie, who was a plumber with a business at No. 629 Sixth Avenue, and Frank Gillespie.

Frank Trope’s grocery store would continue into the 1890s while he, too, lived upstairs.   By 1900 the business was taken over by F. W. Jaeck, who listed himself as a butcher.   By now the extended neighborhood had degraded into one of crime and vice—known as the Tenderloin.   Social reformers preferred the name “Satan’s Circus.”  Its streets were lined with brothels, saloons, and illegal gambling parlors; and corruption among the police was rampant.

The character of the neighborhood was reflected in the lodgers who took rooms at No. 168 West 35^th Street.   One was 22-year old Charles Smith who was wanted by the Providence, Rhode Island police for burglary in 1904.  Acting on a description supplied by the Providence police, Detectives Boyle and Charlton recognized Smith “trying to dispose of some jewelry in a pawnshop in the Tenderloin, and followed him to a saloon in Seventh avenue,” as reported by The Sun on May 13, 1904.

The saloon sat at the corner of Seventh Avenue and 27^th Street and it was around 4:00 in the afternoon when the officers attempted to arrest Smith.  According to The Sun, Smith was asking for a package he had left with the bartender when they made their move.  It resulted in what The New York Times described as “a terrific hand-to-hand struggle, in which both the prisoner and captors were badly battered.  The man fought furiously with a slungshot, and his head seemed impervious to the blows rained upon it by two revolver butts.”

Two gold watches were found on Smith, matching the description of the watches stolen in Rhode Island.  “The bartender in the saloon gave the detectives a box which he said had been left there by the negro.  This was opened at Police Headquarters and found to contain jewelry, gold bracelets, gold chains and other stuff,” wrote The Sun.  Smith was accused of entering four houses in Providence on the night of May 7 and making off with $5,000 worth of jewelry—a haul worth about $135,000 today.

At the time the lodging house was run by Michael J. Ward, who was visited by investigators in 1907 checking on voter fraud.  It was a common practice for political groups to pay indigent men to vote for their favorite candidates, while giving lodging houses as their addresses so they cast votes in various wards.

Three years later it was Lawrence J. Collins who was listed as the lodging house operator.   The former grocery store was now a saloon, run by Michael J. Collins, presumably a relative.  In 1912 violations resulted in Collins losing his liquor license.

The garment and millinery industries, long centered around Broadway below 14^th Street, were inching closer to No. 461 Seventh Avenue.  The change in the neighborhood was accelerated when Rowland H. Macy surprised New Yorkers with his announcement in July 1901 that he was abandoning 14^th Street.  He planned to build a gigantic new store on 34^th Street, running through to 35^th Street along Broadway.  The nine-story structure would be a commercial phenomenon.

Diagonally opposite No. 461 Seventh Avenue, on the southwest corner of 34^th Street and Broadway, sat a similar structure.   Henry Siegel, owner of a major competitive dry goods store, had discovered Macy’s plan before he had a chance to buy up all the property.  Siegel outbid Macy on the corner lot, paying $125,000.  Undeterred, Rowland Macy built his mammoth department Store around the stubborn holdout.   It was a frustrating situation that would repeat itself before too long.

On the opposite corner from No. 461, Henry Siegel had replaced the little structure at 34th St and Broadway with a commercial building--still a thorn in Macy's architectural side.  photo by Wurts Bros. from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult&VBID=24UAYW9AK2VS&SMLS=1&RW=1366&RH=631&PN=2#/SearchResult&VBID=24UAYW9AK2VS&SMLS=1&RW=1366&RH=631&PN=2

In June 1917 Margaret D. Thomas purchased “the four story building” on the Seventh Avenue corner.   Five years later, on August 5, 1922, the Real Estate Record and Builders’ Guide reported that she had leased the entire structure “with stores” to Philip Mangone at an annual rent of $12,000.

The following year “because of increased volume of business,” women’s clothing manufacturer Eddie Kahn moved into the building.  He was still here as late as 1925.

In 1924 Macy’s expanded, opening the “West Building,” increasing its selling space to 1.5 million square feet.  Five years later, in September, it announced it would expand again.  The store purchased a three-story and a 16-story structure on Seventh Avenue and negotiated for No. 461.   Margaret D. Thomas, perhaps holding out for more money, declined to sell.  Once again Macy’s found itself building around an annoying corner building that refused to budge.

When architects released a rendering of the new 7th Avenue Extension to Macy's on April 17, 1930, the annoying little building at No. 461 7th Avenue was included.  photo by Wurts Bros. from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult&VBID=24UAYW9AK2VS&SMLS=1&RW=1366&RH=631&PN=2#/SearchResult&VBID=24UAYW9AK2VS&SMLS=1&RW=1366&RH=631&PN=2

By now the Garment Center had completely engulfed the area.  .  Religiously observant Jewish workers were faced with a problem.  Living in Brooklyn or, in some cases, as far away as Long Island, they needed a local synagogue for daily minyan—prayer services—or for the prayers for the dead recited during the week.

The Garment Center Congregation was formed in 1932 and No. 461 was heavily converted.  It was reduced to two stories—stores on the sidewalk level and the synagogue on the second floor.  In April 1935 it expanded its services by organizing a “sisterhood.”

On November 10, 1944 the congregation approved plans “for the erection of a Jewish community center and a new synagogue to replace the present quarters at the corner of Seventh Avenue and Thirty-fifth Street,” as reported in the Canadian Jewish Review.   Max A. Drusin, president of the congregation, estimated the cost of the structure to be half a million dollars and told reporters that “four locations are under consideration.”

Fund raising within the garment district began almost immediately.  But it would take two decades for the necessary capital to be raised. 

When Joseph Sturenthal ran the store the second floor was the "World's Largest Humidor" -- photo courtesy of Brian Saltz

In the meantime on the first floor by 1946 was the J & S Cigar Store, run by Joseph Sturenthal.   The store doubled as a luncheonette and soda fountain, with as many as eight counter clerks during the noon lunch rush.  Still here in 1977, The New York Times said of the cigar store:  “Fronting as an egg cream luncheonette, J & S nonetheless claims to have the largest humidor in the country.  Bob Sheer, the manager, says a box of Dominican Primo Del Rey, from $10 to $27, is always safe.”

By the time of The Times article, the Garment Center Synagogue had erected its new structure and moved.  At 2:00 on October 28, 1965 a procession moved up Seventh Avenue to No. 205 West 40^th Street.  “The Torahs were followed by 50 members of the congregation and a small band that played sprightly hora dancing tunes,” reported The Times.

Much altered, the venerable and unnoticed building’s colorful history includes a brief appearance in the 1992 motion picture Bad Lieutenant.  It was the location in the movie where actor Harvey Keitel, as the police lieutenant, sorts out a robbery.   Now, home to a delicatessen and grocery (just as it started out), the little David still stubbornly hunkers below Macy’s Goliath.

photographs by the author

Gimbels Dept. Store -- 6th Avenue and 33rd Street

As the building neared completion, Daniel Burnham released a sketch  Real Estate Record & Guide, July 10, 1909 (copyright expired)

At the turn of the 20^th century, the main shopping district in Manhattan stretched from 14^th Street to 23^rd Street along 6^th Avenue and along Broadway—the area known as The Ladies’ Mile.  Rowland Hussey Macy ran his successful department store at 14^th Street, just below 6^th Avenue where palatial emporiums filled entire blocks.

But in 1902 Macy took a brave gamble.   He leap-frogged the district and built the largest store of them all ten blocks north at 34^th Street.   Near the mansions of Fifth Avenue, the new Macy’s was set so far apart from the other dry goods stores that a steam-powered omnibus was provided to shuttle shoppers back and forth.

Macy no doubt felt secure with his competitors located far to the south.  But his greatest rival was not yet in New York City; but in Philadelphia.

Sixty years earlier Bavarian immigrant Adam Gimbel opened a lace shop in Vincennes, Indiana.  In 1886 the first “Gimbels” store opened in Milwaukee, followed seven years later by a large department store in Philadelphia.

Following the turn of the century, construction began on the mammoth Pennsylvania Station near Macy’s.  The increased potential of the area was not lost on Benjamin Gimbel and, despite his five brothers’ reluctance, he convinced them to open a Manhattan store.  The Real Estate Record & Builders’ Guide would later recall “In those days the site of the present Gimbel Building and the Pennsylvania station were occupied by dwellings and old-fashioned flats and tenements typical of the period.”

The Gimbel brothers leased land atop the “McAdoo tunnel system” for a term of 105 years.  The New York Times announced on January 30, 1909 that the “massive store” would “be the terminal of the McAdoo tunnel system, or Manhattan tunnels, which, by the time the store building is completed, will connect with the Pennsylvania Railroad, Central Railroad of New Jersey, the Erie system, and the Lackawanna & Western Railroad, handling, it is estimated, 1,000,000 persons daily.”

The department store site covered the entire blockfront from 31^st to 32^nd Street facing Sixth Avenue and across from Greeley Square.  Gimbels chose Chicago-based Daniel Hudson Burnham as its architect—possibly influenced by his design of other department stores including Marshall Field & Co. in Chicago and the McCreery Department Store in Pittsburgh.  Burnham filed plans for a 10-story structure above ground, with more floors below street level.

The understated Renaissance-inspired design belied the list of superlatives used by the press.  Newspapers and journals made note of the 2,406 support columns, the 12 “vast entrances with seventy-two doors,” 27 acres of floor space and the 45 show windows.

On July 10, 1909 The Record & Guide reported on “A mile and a half of banister” that would run along the stairways, the 8,000 automatic sprinklers and the 50 electric elevators.  The journal estimated that the construction of the mammoth store gave “directly and indirectly, employment to thousands of operatives.”

Armies of workmen scrambled to complete the store in record time -- photograph from the collection of the New York Public Library

A copper box containing a history of the Gimbel operation and “other data which will be of curious interest to some future generation,” according to The Record & Guide, was placed in the corner stone on December 8, 1909.  The excavation of the foundation had taken five months alone and strikes slowed construction.  Nevertheless on June 11, 1910 the $12 million store, including land, was completed ahead of schedule.

Gimbel Brothers immediately capitalized on the convenience of sitting directly above the subway.  A double-height “Subway Store” was designed to make subterranean shopping as chic as the upper floors.  Advertisements boasted of the easy accessibility for shoppers even in remote areas.  Adding to Gimbels’ accessibility to mass transit was the 6^th Avenue Elevated train.  A station stop was created directly outside the store at 33^rd Street.

The Subway Store was a retail innovation -- The Sun, October 5, 1910 (copyright expired)

Macy’s greatest threat had arrived and a decades-long competition for patrons was on.

 

Shortly after opening Gimbels advertised black beaver hats for $5.75 and ostrich plumed hats for $15 -- The Evening World, December 6, 1910 (copyright expired)

While Gimbels did offer high priced goods, it mostly targeted the middle-class woman.  Gimbels advertisements repeated the word “plain” – “Plain as a butter tub” and “Plain old Gimbels,” for instance.  It gained a loyal customer base of women who knew they were getting quality items at affordable prices.

The Gimbels New York department store was so successful that in July 1919 the brothers broke the 105-year lease by purchasing the property for $7 million.

The Bernard Gimbel, who oversaw the New York store, was a brilliant marketer, staging fashion shows, carnivals and other gimmicks to draw customers.  In March 1920 wealthy socialites worked as saleswomen, donating their 10 per cent commissions to Bellevue Hospital.   On March 13 The New York Times commented, “Miss Fay Bainter sold a hat almost the moment she arrived, but selling became difficult, for customers increased so swiftly that the floor space was congested.  Mrs. George Baker, Jr., has been on duty for three days and Mrs. Charles Dana Gibson worked hard all Thursday afternoon.  Mrs. F. N. Watriss and Mrs. Mary Hoyt Wiborg are among the more recent workers.”

The 6th Avenue Elevated station was directly outside of Gimbels -- Wurts Bros. from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult&VBID=24UAYWV0O7FN&SMLS=1&RW=1280&RH=894

Among the conveniences offered was the nursery where mothers could drop off their children while they shopped.  On September 10, 1921 at 2:30 a young woman in a black silk dress dropped her one-month old baby girl with Stella Ellis, saying she would pick up the infant later.  When the store was closed, the baby was still there.

A policeman was called who took the child to Bellevue Hospital.  The nursery, it appeared, was an easy way for the mother to abandon her infant with the knowledge it would be cared for.

A model strikes a post during a fashion show around the time of the store's opening -- from the collection of the New York Public Library

Sitting between Macy’s and Gimbels was the nine-story Saks & Co. department store, engulfing the 6^th Avenue blockfront between 33^rd and 34^th Streets.  In 1922 the firm began construction of its new building on Fifth Avenue at 50^th Street.  Although the project would take two years to complete, Gimbels was quick to react. The Real Estate Record & Builders’ Guide reported on June 15 that Gimbels had leased the structure for 21 years at an annual rental of “between $400,000 and $500,000 net.”  It was, no doubt, no coincidence that the move followed closely on the heels of R. H. Macy & Co.’s announcement to erect an addition to its store.

In reporting on the lease, The New York Times mentioned “It was said that it was too early yet to make any definite announcement of plans for the actual physical linking together of the two structures, but two ways of joining them may be used.”  One idea was a tunnel, connecting to the various passenger tunnels already in place.  “There is also the possibility of building an overhead bridge,” said the newspaper.

But before any of this could take place, less than a year later, on April 25, 1923, The New York Times reported that Gimbels and Saks had merged.  “When Saks & Co. move to their new store at 617 Fifth Avenue, Gimbels, [which] already had acquired the present Saks building just across Thirty-third Street from the Gimbel store, will open there a special store similar to that now conducted by Saks.”

When Gimbels opened in the former Saks building in 1924, a platform from the 6^th Avenue El was extended down 33^rd Street and a connecting bridge built between the two structures at the second floor.  Now customers could easily alight from the elevated and enter either store.  The bridge had its drawbacks, however.  It became a favorite escape route for shoplifters who would dash from Gimbels into the former Saks building, or vice-versa.

A postcard captured the bridge between Gimbels and the former Saks Building after the demolition of the El.

Gimbels’ long list of innovative marketing perhaps reached its apex in September 1924 when it opened a radio station on the 8^th Floor.  “The entire station, including the studio in which the artists perform, the transmitting room and power room, will be in a glass enclosure, so that the public can see how broadcasting is done and how the apparatus functions,” reported The Times.  Shoppers were allowed into the studio during program were being aired; and a special “receiving room” was available for people to gather to hear important news events.

Louis Gimbel described the family-friendly programs, including “debates and concerts by school children and music students recommended by teachers of music.  A feature of the opening program will be Uncle Wip, the bedtime story teller of station WIP, Philadelphia, who has organized a club of 35,000 children by his broadcasts.”

Gimbels’ phenomenal growth was evidenced not only by its sales exceeding $100 million that year; but by the purchase the following year of the 18-story Cuyler Building at Nos. 120 through 126 West 32^nd Street.  When Gimbel Brothers announced the $2.5 purchase in October 1925, it said the acquisition “was made necessary by the great growth of the company’s business.”  To connect the Gimbels store with the Cuyler Building, architects Richard H. Shreve and William F. Lamb were commissioned to design another sky bridge—this one a three-story copper-clad Art Deco beauty.

An ambitious 3-story bridge connected Gimbels with the Cuyler Building.

The Gimbel store’s gimmicks to attract customers became more creative during the Depression years and in November 1935 the 6^th Floor was turned into a replica of the 19th century Barnum Museum on Broadway.  Adults paid 15 cents and children a dime to see the legendary museum’s attractions.

“It is really a complete Barnum,” said The Times.  “Joice Heth, wizened and witch-like, is there to remind you that she lived when George Washington was too young to chop down trees.  The Cardiff Giant looms coldly from his erect coffin in a corner.  The white whale, with an undulant tail and heaving sides, spouts regularly—at least as often as some one pushes a button hidden by the rail.”

Among the 60 life-sized models were Tom Thumb, the Fejee Mermaid, Jumbo the Elephant and Jenny Lind.  “Barnum himself stands at the side of his nightingale,” said The Times, “and when the electricians in the rear room see to it, he makes a speech of introduction.  Then Jenny sings, although her papier-mâché lips do not coordinate with the melody very well.”

On April 24, 1937 Amelia Earhart addressed a group of 500 in the department store’s restaurant.  The New York Times made special note of her announcement that “she purposed to attempt the ‘round the world at the Equator’ flight again ‘some time around the middle of May.’”

Although the old 6^th Avenue El was demolished in 1939, the second story bridge remained to link the Gimbels and Saks buildings. 

In August 1941, just months before the attack on Pearl Harbor, the government instituted curbs on the manufacture of silk stockings.  Silk was necessary in the manufacture of parachutes.  The announcement sparked a near riot among female New Yorkers.  On August 5 a New York Times headline read “Women Stampede for Stockings As Result of Government Silk Ban.”

“Ropes controlled the crowds at Gimbel’s, where nineteen extra [employees] confronted the women who were lured there by a special sale of nylon and silk hosiery that disappeared early in the morning.  Even though salesgirls were summoned from near-by counters to assist with the stocking sale, there arose a plea from the buyer, ‘Get me some more girls, please,’ as the noon customers bunched in the store.”

Gimbels pitched into the war cause by selling Victory Bonds and, in 1943, installing a vegetable garden inside the store “to prove that two persons can grow all the vegetables they need for three months on a tiny plot,” said The Times.   It went even further, at the war’s end, by helping the Government sell off surplus property on the selling floor.

The rivalry between Macy’s and Gimbels was legendary; and never more so than during the Christmas selling season.  But in December 1955 an unexpected truce was called.  On December 9 The New York Times wrote “Bernard F. Gimbel, who has long been devoted to a department store that bears his name, did something extraordinary yesterday.  He went to Macy’s.”

Gimbel visited the office of Jack I. Straus, President of R. H. Macy & Co., with an surprising marketing strategy.  Soon “throngs of happy, rosy-cheeked shoppers, eagerly crowding one another off the sidewalks, were becoming aware of two huge signs on Macy’s and Gimbels.  The Macy sign read ‘This Way to Gimbels’ and ‘When Macy’s Tells Gimbels, It’s the Miracle on 34^th Street.’  The Gimbels sign was similar, except that it pointed to Macy’s.”

The competition was evident three years later when the motion picture Auntie Mame was released.  Rosalind Russell, in the role of Mame, walked off her job at Macy’s during the Christmas rush.  Infuriated customers wanted to know how they were to get the items they wanted.  “Go to Gimbels,” Mame responded.

Things were changing for Gimbels Greeley Square by the 1960s.  On December 29, 1965 E. J. Korvette, Inc. announced plans to take possession of the former Saks Building.  Four months later, on April 23, 1966, The Times reported on the removal of the second story bridge.  “After 42 years, the two-level bridge is being demolished.  In about a week, it will pass into oblivion—a fate that has overcome many other New York landmarks.”

Two years later Gimbels announced plans for a new store on the corner of Lexington Avenue and East 86^th Street.  The 14-story white marble and black slate building opened in February 1972, and the old 6^th Avenue building became known as “Gimbels downtown.”  But unlike its Upper East Side counterpart, the 1910 store sat in what was now an increasingly seedy neighborhood.

On June 6, 1986 the Associated Press reported “Macy’s no longer has to keep its secrets from Gimbels.  After 76 years of a fierce but friendly rivalry, Gimbels at Herald Square is going out of business.”   Within a year the Brooklyn-based department store Abraham & Straus announced it would take over the old 6^th Avenue building.  The intended gut renovation was part of an attempt to revive the Herald Square shopping district.  Earlier the old Saks-then-Korvettes building had become a vertical mall, Herald Center; however to date its reception among shoppers was tepid at best.

Burnham’s Edwardian façade remained—more or less—while the interiors were junked and replaced by the A&S Plaza that featured an enormous central atrium.  Walls of glass and a sleek two-story base retained the old structure's bones while giving it a decidedly modern feel.  And yet still clinging on high above 33^rd Street was the wonderful Art Deco sky bridge which had somehow survived.

The plan failed.  By 2002 when advertising agency Foote, Cone & Belding leased the 270,000 square foot building, Times reporter John Holusha remarked “The building once housed Gimbels, then Abraham & Straus and then Stern’s department store and along the way became known as the Manhattan Mall.”

Foote, Cone & Belding decided on another direction for the property--a mixture of business offices, showrooms and stores.  In 2006 the building was sold once again, this time to Vornado Realty Trust for about $689 million.

Little remains to remind New Yorkers that a massive department store one engulfed three buildings here.  Except a fantastic copper sky bridge, long ago sealed up, high above 33^rd Street.

current photographs by the author
many thanks to reader Karina Romero for requesting this post

The Little Building Under the Big Bag at Macy's

photo by Mike Strand

The dry goods store established by Rowland Hussey Macy in 1858 at 14th Street and Sixth Avenue was in the hub of the shopping district.  But by the 1880s large, impressive emporiums were establishing themselves further up Sixth Avenue along what would be called The Ladies Mile. 

Roland Macy had died in 1877 and in 1896 brothers Isidor and Nathan Straus acquired the business.  Realizing that the continued northward movement would leave his store behind and as the century wound down, they schemed to jump ahead of the pack, secretly buying up the properties along Broadway from 34th to 35th Streets.  A handshake with Alfred Duane Pell cemented a $250,000 agreement for the 34th Street corner property.

Henry Siegel, part owner of a major competitive dry goods concern, Siegel-Cooper, got wind of the plan.  Through an agent he outbid Macy's for the corner lot by $125,000 and understandably Pell accepted--the difference was a substantial $3.8 million by today's standards.  Although Siegel's intentions cannot be completely certain, it appears he wanted Macy's 14th Street property.  He held the 34th Street corner hostage; the ransom being the 14th Street property.

The Strauses called Siegel's bluff.  In July of 1901 it was announced that that Macy's would built a gigantic new store with over 1.5 million square feet, nine stories high, a commercial phenomenon.   The structure would be built around the obstinate corner; a notable example of a real estate holdout.

Horse-drawn carriages and one motorcar line the curb in front of the new department store.  Siegel's replacement building, still vacant, sits on the corner.  photo from the collection of the New-York Historical Society

Defeated, Siegel razed his little corner building and erected a five-story commercial structure.  When R. H.  Macy & Co. moved into its new building in 1903, Siegel took over the 14th Street property.  Four years later he sold his interest in the 34th Street building to Robert Smith who resold it in 1911 for $1 million--more than 27 times that much today.

In the 1940s Macy's began using the little building as an easel for its advertising, in what must have been an "if you can't beat it, use it" philosophy.  As the decades progressed, less and less of the little building, designed by William H. Hume, was visible.

Advertising had begun covering the little corner building by the 1940s -- from the collection of the New York Public Library

Today just two floors of the Hume building can be seen under the huge red Macy's shopping bag that has become so familiar to New Yorkers.  The David and the Goliath of the 34th Street corner have made peace, it would seem, after a century of irritating co-existence.