There is, however, a Hoople, ND. To my knowledge, it has never had a large department store.
Some weird news about Macy’s:
Of course this is not the fault of one single employee: reputable companies have accountants and auditors and other people doing cross-checks.
I can say from over 30 years of working in or around Finance in half a dozen large companies (>$10B in sales), there is absolutely no way this is the act of a single person. At the very least there were others who had their eyes very determinedly averted.
I realize that this is a five-year old entry in the thread, but I have to point out that smaller cities did, indeed, have their own treasured Department Stores.
Salt Lake City had ZCMI (the Zion’s Cooperative Merchant Institution), which was purchased in 2001 by another store and, through ac series of sales and mergers, ended up as part of Macy’s. (You can see a ZCMI store in Herk Harvey’s indy horror film Carnival of Souls, along with the old Saltaire pavilion)
Rocjester, NY had the Sibley, Lindsay, and Curr store downtown, generally just called Sibley’s. The flagship store had little bonsai-like bushes in the center top of each window. They merged with Kaufmann’s, and were eventually swallowed up by Macy’s
Competing with them was McCurdy’s, right across the street. They, too, merged with Kaufmann’s and later Macy’s
Boston, of course, had Jordan Marsh. Their characteristic beaten-metal storefroint was the passion of preservationinsts when the store went bankrupt in 1996 and was acquired by – you guessed it – Macy’s. Macy’s tore down that iconic front and replaced it with soulless brick.
Chicago is mentioned, but not its famous store Marshall-Fields. Macy’s acquired it, too, in 2005. I’ve got a soft spot for them – I went to college on a Marshall Fields scholarship. They bankrolled the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, and their family was partially responsible for bringing the submarine S-49 to Chicago in 1933 (not the much later German U-505 – that was at least the fourth submarine in Chicago).
Little Rock had MM Cohns. You can still find their building downtown but the place closed its doors in the 1990s.
Lafayette Louisiana had one in the late 1970s. Still fairly elegant, but located in a dying downtown. It had a good Cajun name.
I need to emphasize that every city - from 1,000 people on up - had a department store. The grandness of the store of course varied - New York, Philadelphia, and Chicago had the grandest - but grand stores existed everywhere.
Texas had some of the grandest, because of oil money. Neiman Marcus is a Dallas store. Nordstrom is from Seattle. Hudson’s in Detroit easily rivaled Macy’s and had a bigger Thanksgiving Day parade. Dayton’s, which was in Minneapolis, not Ohio. (Dayton’s and Hudson’s merged and begat Target.) Kaufmann’s in Pittsburgh. May Company in St. Louis. Hecht’s in Baltimore and Garfinkel’s in Washington. Bullock’s in Los Angeles. Filene’s in Boston. Maison Blanche in New Orleans. Columbus’ F & R Lazarus generated the giant Federated Department Store holding company that combined the buying power of smaller-city stores to compete with the Macy’s of the world.
I find department store history fascinating, because they so dominated retail and shaped consumerism and the middle class for almost a century. They were “downtown” back when that term meant something. Rochester had six department stores in two blocks of Main St. at one time. (It was larger than Dallas, Houston, or San Antonio a century ago.) People had to shop there because no real equivalents or competitors existed. (And yes, some did sell groceries, but for the luxury trade.)
A lot of department stores here in England are really struggling, or are already gone. High street shopping was already on the wane pre-covid, but the pandemic really hit it hard.
I am wondering if it will make a comeback though - online shopping seems to be getting increasingly polluted with scams and low quality knockoffs to the extent that there are some things that just aren’t worth trying to buy online any more.
I’ve been trying to shop for clothes and shoes in person for two years, and I’ve been increasingly frustrated.
Even a “nice” store like Nordstrom seems to have so little selection. Idiotically they’ll tell me to get the size or color I want online. Also the staff are just awful compared with what they were 20 years ago (unsurprisingly since the sales volume must be down 75%). The only thing they seem to be interested in selling is a credit card.
The prices at REI seem ridiculously high, and those at Dick’s are crazy high-low (high regular prices and deep discounts).
On the other hand we have two new, huge “lifestyle centers” that have been built within five miles of our house in the last ten years. And apparently rents are sky-high. Dunno how because except for the Trader Joe’s and Wegman’s (grocery store) there doesn’t appear to be much customer traffic for 47 weeks of the year.
I remember “the ZCMI Store,” as it was called, from John D. Fitzgerald’s Great Brain books, set in a small town in frontier Utah. It was just about the only place in town to buy anything.
Am I the only one who keeps getting excited, and then keeps getting disappointed, every time he sees this thread and thinks, oh, man, that’d be awesome: a whole department store that gets up on its hind legs and bellows like a mighty giant, as if looking for a fight?
The only way I can see department stores coming back in a big way is if 3D printing reaches the point were they can make bespoke clothing and shoes more or less on the spot.
I think it’s possible to partially automate custom clothing but it’s going to involve different technologies than “3D printing”.
Why would you want all the overhead of a department store if you can do that?
I appreciate the one remaining department store we have in our local area.
I especially like to be able to try on coats and pants and slippers and other assorted items of clothing.
I like to inspect a suitcase I am going to purchase or feel the thickness of the towels.
I shop online for most things but for certain items I really like the physical presence of the products.
Every time I see this thread I think “self, this is the time I will post it to the ‘Misinterpreted Thread Titles’ thread”, but it turns out I’m too lazy to do so.
American Dream is a huge mall here in Upstate NY (Well downstate to me). And they have everything:
-snowboarding
-games
- escape rooms
- 7d rides to shoot em up
- climbing course
- ice skating
- art museum
- a train
- mini golf(2 kinds)
- ferris wheel
- mirror maze
- aquarium
- legoland
- arcade
- museum
- surf?
- nickeloden theme park
- water park
plus tons and tons and tons of regular stores, including
- best buy
- saks fifth avenue
- primark
Surprised they don’t have a grocery store. Anyway I think this is the future of malls: you must do everything to make it worthwhile. And they charge for parking. You can have a fun day though. NYC peeps probably think its cheaper prices but it’s definitely higher than the Albany Metro area, still a good time to be had.
This. I just bought two pairs of running shoes, and the ones that fit me - from the same manufacturer - were a full size apart. I know you can return shoes bought online, but it seems very inefficient.
Are you referring to a different mall than the one in East Rutherford, New Jersey?
Yes! I absolutely have to try on shoes and pants. The differences in sizing can be a problem.
I also hate sending things back in the mail. I’ll keep store shopping as long as it’s available.