1.4 - Macy's Across the Street
Astaires See World's Biggest Department Store
Just across 34th Street from the Astaires’ hotel was R.H. Macy’s department store, which had moved to Herald Square just two years before. Originally located 20 blocks south on Sixth Avenue near 14th Street at the lower end of what had become known as the Ladies’ Mile because of its many exclusive shops, Macy’s was the first of the big stores to move north. Macy’s chose the 34th Street location for several reasons. Herald Square provided easy access to the elevated railroads with a stop at 33rd Street. Since the consolidation of the Waldorf and Astoria hotels in 1897, the massive Waldorf-Astoria (the world’s largest hotel with 1,300 rooms) had been drawing an exclusive clientele just a block away at Fifth Avenue between 33rd, and other hotels were beginning to follow. 34th Street was the first wide cross-town street north of Madison Square, and the area had become home to more and more theaters and restaurants also moving north from the Union Square district. Within four blocks were a half dozen theaters and even more fashionable restaurants.[1]
Originally the Macy’s planners thought to build on the east side of Herald Square, but they were unable to obtain sufficient titles. The west side offered not only easier access to more land but also a Broadway frontage set back from the noise and smoke of the Sixth Avenue El. Except for the recently built Koster & Bial’s theater, which stretched from 34th to 35th street, most of the existing structures were small brownstone homes that were converting to small commercial spaces (Hungerford 68). Macy’s had accumulated many land titles, but there was one hold-out: the northwest corner of Broadway and 34th street, owned by the Rev. Duane Pell, who was insisting on $250,000 for the 30 x 50-foot parcel. Macy’s largest competitor, Siegel-Cooper, originally based in Chicago and which had opened a store in the Ladies’ Mile shopping district in 1896, had learned of Macy’s planned move uptown and an apparent scheme to leave their existing location on 14th Street vacant for two years. Henry Siegel’s agent met Pell, who had been in Europe at a steamer-pier and secretly outbid Macy’s for the 34th street corner, perhaps hoping to swap it for the 14th street property. Macy’s refused to negotiate and proceeded to develop plans to encircle the obstinate parcel.
Demolition of the old properties began in July 1901 and construction began in early October 1901. The new, steel-framed, nine-story building (designed by the firm De Lemos & Cordes, which had also designed the Siegel-Cooper store) opened on Saturday, November 8, 1902, with over one million square feet of floor space. At the time it was the world’s largest department store, and it remains the largest in the United States. When originally built, the ninth floor was devoted to a huge exhibition hall, which hosted poultry shows, flower shows and even an automobile show (Hungerford 74-75). Constructed of red brick and limestone, the middle floors of the Broadway side have superimposed bay windows and four-story high Corinthian columns, and above these rise Palladian style arched windows. On the 34th Avenue side, which faced the Herald Square Hotel, the arched entrance was topped by a lintel with “R.H. MACY & CO” carved in the stone, and above that a large clock surrounded on each side by caryatids designed by J. Massey Rhind (Ziga 31).
Macy’s is the only building still standing on Herald Square that the Austerlitzes would have seen, but another major retailer, Saks & Company, had recently opened on 34th Street. Built in 1902, the seven-story store sold only clothing and was built with limestone rather than Macy’s red brick (Gray). Gimbel’s would arrive in 1910 and eventually merge with Saks in 1923 and move its flagship Saks store north to Fifth Avenue and 49th Street in 1924.
[1]Theatres included the Manhattan (33rd), Savoy (34th), Herald Square (35th), Garrick (35th), Knickerbocker (38th) and Casino (39th). Notable restaurants included Café Francis (53 W. 35th), Hofbrau Haus (30th & Broadway), and Moretti’s (51 W. 35th).
SOURCES
Gray, Christopher. "Saks: The Giant Leap from Sixth Avenue to Fifth Avenue." The New York Times 16 April 1995. <https://www.nytimes.com/1995/04/16/realestate/streetscapes-saks-the-giant-leap-from-sixth-avenue-to-fifth-avenue.html>.
Hungerford, Edward. The Romance of a Great Store. New York: R.M. McBride & Co., 1922. <http://hdl.handle.net/2027/nyp.33433020553644>.
Ziga, Charles J. New York Landmarks: A Collection of Architecture and Historical Details. New York: Dovetail Books, 1991.