Nitpick: I remember when I was in school the teacher emphasizing that the correct name for the famous body of water in northern Canada was Hudson Bay (no possessive). However the founders of the company named after it in 1670 didn’t have the benefit of my teacher’s guidance, so it’s confusingly named the Hudson’s Bay Company and has been for over 350 years, even though there’s no such place as Hudson’s Bay.
I don’t consider Macy’s all that upscale, but it sounds like they still operate like a more upscale/traditional store. I’m still bitter about their purchase of Marshall Field’s. I’d definitely put Marshall Field’s a notch or two above Macy’s, probably on par with Lord & Taylor. Macy’s is mostly name recognition and their flagship NYC store, but it is still a step up from JCPenney or Dillard’s, though not by much anymore. Those two are a step up from Sears, but Sears is dead. The more hoity-toity realm is Neiman Marcus, Saks, Nordstrom, and Bloomingdale’s, probably in about that order too.
My last visit to Nordstrom a few months ago gave me the impression that they were now at where Macy’s was in 2010. And Macy’s is in turn where Penney’s was.
And this was in a relatively healthy mall.
Though I was there to buy shoes, which at retail has become a clusterfuck everywhere it seems.
Hudson’s Bay has a selection of reasonably good cookware (at least online or in bigger stores), somewhat stylish store brand suits, and its priciest (mens) casual clothing is mainstream Polo or Nautica or Tommy Bahama. They might have six to twelve perfume counters. You could pay a few hundred dollars for a watch. They have often clothed Canadian Olympic teams. No one would consider any of their clothing “cutting edge”.
I don’t shop in the States often enough to guarantee an exact comparison.
I may have overstated the extent to which HBC caters to the luxury market, but I’m pretty sure their success is largely due to upscale ambiance and quality products. Cookware would be an example. I was looking for a crepe pan once (I use 'em for toasting baguette slices and buns) and found one at HBC. It was very nice, but was also over $200. I went over to IKEA and picked up two for $10 each. But the HBC around here is a really nice place to shop.
I like HBC and they sell quality stuff. Definitely above Target, JC Penney, Wal-Mart, Zellers, Woolco, Kohl’s… but not Bloomies, Saks, Nordstrom or the fanciest places.
Sorry it’s taken a while to respond. Don’t remember the monkey cage, just the duckpond and the birdcage at Cherry Hill. I grew up in Cherry Hill (practically around the corner from Cherry Hill East High School).
I miss mall movie theaters…the Moorestown one seems to be the only one still thriving, and that’s much bigger than the old Eric one that used to be there. The Echelon Mall theater was where I saw my earliest movies as a kid…a Snow White rerelease and Disney’s live-action Candleshoe (the first thing I ever saw Jodie Foster in!), and later, The Muppet Movie, E.T. and Star Trek IV (a year after I got into Trek at the age of thirteen).
That’s pretty much how I’d rate them, though, overall, all department stores have declined in quality in the last decade or so.
Harrods, in London, stands as one of the most opulent department stores globally. Although I haven’t had the pleasure of visiting it myself, my brother frequented its hallowed halls during his years in England. His thoughtful Christmas gifts, dispatched from Harrods, included ground coffee elegantly packaged in their signature tins. To this day, that aromatic brew remains the finest coffee I’ve ever savored!
Although Harrods isn’t just dependent on local residents for a customer base. I imagine that wealthy people from the Middle East and Asia travel to London in part just to shop there. I don’t know if people are traveling to Paramus, New Jersey to shop.
Maybe it used to sell bays.
And if you want to cry, go online to see how FB building (technically Railway Express Bldg) now looks like a bombed out building which city might be forced to buy
@babale: Genghis Khan’s horde runs an airline: Login required | Planespotters.net (and an airport: https://en.ulaanbaatar-airport.mn/ ) The East India Company is now a luxury boutique in London (no cars for sale, just “curated hampers”): Flagship Store – The East India Company
Don’t have much to contribute myself, but I want to say reading this thread is fascinating for me. It’s like a glimpse into a world that was mostly gone but was just around enough when I was a little kid that I know some of what people are talking about.
I remember growing up in the late 80s early 90s, and I recognized names like JCPenney, Macy’s, and Woolworths But they’re very very vague. All these stories about piano players, cosmetic stands, and fancy displays and the like I have no memory of any of that. I recognize them mostly from seeing them in old TV shows and movies.
5 to 10 years ago there were still a handful of standalone JCPenney stores, and Sears appliance stores in strip malls and the like around here. Those all died during and after the pandemic. For context my experiences would be late '80s early 90s in southwestern Michigan.
We were in London in March and visited Harrod’s. It is…indescribable. The opulence, the scale—it’s spectacular. And if you’re feeling peckish, not to worry. Sushi, sashimi, steaks, whatever you’d like in the form of an adult beverage. I grew up in Philly, but I felt like a bit of a rube in Harrod’s.
I know I’m about a month and a half late to the party, but Cleveland had one - Higbee’s. It’s flagship store was on Public Square, and I suspect most Dopers have seen it - it’s the store into which Ralphie is covetously gazing at his oh-so-desirable “official Red Ryder, carbine action, 200-shot, range model air rifle, with a compass in the stock and this thing that tells time”, at the beginning of A Christmas Story.
The obvious counter-example is Dallas-based Neiman Marcus, which was famous for its over-the-top Christmas catalog.
I’m not sure about grand department stores, but it seems to me that Texas cities near the border still keep a lot of traditional shopping alive, such as downtown stores and older enclosed malls, due to the cross-border trade. Even places like San Antonio seem to have much more activity at malls because of it.
To continue the hijack, this reference to an 18th c. instrument is likely nonesense. According to Wiki (Concerto for Horn and Hardart - Wikipedia) it was built with the help of Philip Glass and it is clear that it was built only so PDQ Bach (Peter Schickele) could compose a concert to Horn and Hardart. BTW, there is no U of SND (Southern North Dakota).
Um… whoosh? Yes, I think every classical music fan knows full well that Schickele’s musicological “findings” are pure comedic invention. (The “left-handed sewer flute” and “dill piccolo”, for example, also have no actual existence in organological history. 
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