Sunday, August 07, 2005
This is Macy’s? -- Or -- Victim of Success
Part II of -- Fourth of July Macy’s Style
Tuesday, July 5th was to be a powerhouse day of sightseeing involving all things commercial, our first two days in Manhattan being a Sunday and a Monday holiday, many stores were bound not to be open. We took in Wall Street and some kind of food fest going on nearby, a much easier pace of sampling foods from a variety of ethnic origins than “A Taste of Chicago” which we had visited just the Saturday before, and which was more of an exercise in pushing through a mob than sampling food. In Chicago I’d gotten some ribs and Nian some Chicago Cheesecake Factory cheesecake and exited the crush counting ourselves lucky to have only spent maybe a half hour on line each to get something to eat. Here in Manhattan the barricaded street was easy to walk and the various food stalls easy to approach.
We headed back up to 42nd street again and took in Times Square at the height of a regular workday. We didn’t really do much at Times Square however except to stop by a Toys-R-Us to get some souvenir items for Nian’s daughter. Up past 42nd we stopped by Rockefeller Center and Saks Fifth Avenue and St. Patrick’s Cathedral, this last in stark contrast to other commercial site visits. We walked past the Empire State Building at some point in our travels about the area, and probably would have made a trip to the top if not for the HUGE line of people waiting, queuing along at least two sides of the building. I had been on top once before over ten years ago, there had been no huge line. In fact there was some strange aura of sadness and lost glory when I visited – the huge visitor assembly area in no need of the dozens of crowd controls ropes, which in the distant past had been used weave people back and forth for fair and space saving line waiting, waiting in line for space on the observation deck and in the elevators. In the new sadder New York it probably isn’t the excitement of being at the highest point in Manhattan, but the melancholy of looking out at what was lost.
Darkness started to close in and weary as we where we had pretty much made a pact to visit Macy’s. Macy’s brags about the being “THE WORLD'S LARGEST STORE” and perhaps in some technical sense it is at 11 and ½ stories tall, but it really is more like taking a large mall, cutting it up into 11 or 12 pieces and stacking them vertically. In fact the building seems crowed dim and claustrophobic. Unlike Saks, this edifice to capitalism is on the other end of the spectrum and hawks its wares at everyday prices. Not exactly bargain prices I would say, but probably barging prices for people trapped in Manhattan.
We scaled the store and made our way quickly to a floor dedicated to shoes. Nian had become obsessed with finding some better footwear before returning to China. We were both tired and beginning to get on one another’s nerves a bit by this time of the day. For about ten minutes I trailed behind Nian giving my honest opinion as to what shoes I thought looked nice or not, then at about the fifteen minute mark I confessed by boredom with the exercise as Nian queried me about my lack of enthusiasm. We gave up trying to find shoes at Macy’s, which as I mentioned really didn’t seem to be all that much of a bargain to me, though they certainly had a large number of items to choose from, but somehow they all just seemed to be of some bland and of unnoticeable design -- none them caught my eye as anything special.
We went through house wares quickly, and I again while there was a huge selection, nothing especially really seemed to leap out at me. Nian was becoming exasperated by my general lack of enthusiasm for anything we looked at in Macy’s.
As we went from floor to floor, the age of the building really started to become apparent. Some of the escalators where very antique and their conveyor belts were actually made of wood. This might have appeared charming had they been well maintained and standard through out the store, but no, the escalators were a hodge-podge of types, many where broken down and had to be used as stairs. The Elevators worked in a fashion, but often ignored button presses, and even when the target floor was illuminated, the elevator would slowly pass on by without pause. This was definitely some 60’s based relay technology or older controlling the lifts, and had become creaky to say the least.
I had noticed on several floors that the furniture was broken down and dirty, the kind of thing you might expect to see discarded along the road, having been thrown away having long since outlived some useful life span, but not here at Macy’s.
All this stood in stark contrast to the Macy’s sponsored spectacle we had just witnessed the night before. While Macy’s is large, I’m sure the amount of money spent on the fireworks alone would have replaced every shoddy piece of furniture in the store with enough left over to repair the escalators and maybe upgrade the control system on the elevators a bit.
Every year Macy’s promises a better 4th of July and a grander Thanksgiving’s Day Parade. Every year this must cost more and more. With competition from the internet and other specialty merchants hawking everything from shoes to electronics and lower prices that Macy’s can match, I would have to think Macy’s profits are diminishing, and perhaps have been diminishing (adjusting for inflation) since the late 80’s. But rather than spruce the old girl up Macy’s must continue its hallmark traditions at the expense of putting what profits there are back into Macy’s itself. Macy’s I think has become a victim of her own success, a success that probably zenithed somewhere in the 40s 50s and 60s, and can scarcely now afford to admit to New York and the world she is spending beyond her means in order to keep up appearances.
Of course my analysis might be way off the mark, perhaps the store routinely is allowed to lapse into disrepair during the summer months only to be made over just in time for the Holiday season. Perhaps some native New Yorker out there could provide the answer.
Nian and I exited Macy’s with Nian still a little irritated with my impatient store behavior, an irritation that spilled over into dinner at a fine Chinese restaurant where she found all my manners boorish and unacceptable, from sitting first without waiting for her (I was bone weary) to holding my chopsticks wrong (I was trying my best) to not keeping both hands on the table (Huh??? I’d never heard that one before).
Still we made it through dinner, and back to the hotel to pack for the trip home early the next morning. I hope I haven’t overstated our minor irritation with one another in the closing hours of our New York vacation. In fact, the vacation proved to be some kind of watershed moment for us, as our relationship which had some rough spots before New York seemed to smooth out of its own accord the next day on the way home. Maybe the balance of memorable and enjoyable moments, which far out weighed the few irritable ones, had become more apparent in the more leisurely pace we were returning to.
Tuesday, July 5th was to be a powerhouse day of sightseeing involving all things commercial, our first two days in Manhattan being a Sunday and a Monday holiday, many stores were bound not to be open. We took in Wall Street and some kind of food fest going on nearby, a much easier pace of sampling foods from a variety of ethnic origins than “A Taste of Chicago” which we had visited just the Saturday before, and which was more of an exercise in pushing through a mob than sampling food. In Chicago I’d gotten some ribs and Nian some Chicago Cheesecake Factory cheesecake and exited the crush counting ourselves lucky to have only spent maybe a half hour on line each to get something to eat. Here in Manhattan the barricaded street was easy to walk and the various food stalls easy to approach.We headed back up to 42nd street again and took in Times Square at the height of a regular workday. We didn’t really do much at Times Square however except to stop by a Toys-R-Us to get some souvenir items for Nian’s daughter. Up past 42nd we stopped by Rockefeller Center and Saks Fifth Avenue and St. Patrick’s Cathedral, this last in stark contrast to other commercial site visits. We walked past the Empire State Building at some point in our travels about the area, and probably would have made a trip to the top if not for the HUGE line of people waiting, queuing along at least two sides of the building. I had been on top once before over ten years ago, there had been no huge line. In fact there was some strange aura of sadness and lost glory when I visited – the huge visitor assembly area in no need of the dozens of crowd controls ropes, which in the distant past had been used weave people back and forth for fair and space saving line waiting, waiting in line for space on the observation deck and in the elevators. In the new sadder New York it probably isn’t the excitement of being at the highest point in Manhattan, but the melancholy of looking out at what was lost.
Darkness started to close in and weary as we where we had pretty much made a pact to visit Macy’s. Macy’s brags about the being “THE WORLD'S LARGEST STORE” and perhaps in some technical sense it is at 11 and ½ stories tall, but it really is more like taking a large mall, cutting it up into 11 or 12 pieces and stacking them vertically. In fact the building seems crowed dim and claustrophobic. Unlike Saks, this edifice to capitalism is on the other end of the spectrum and hawks its wares at everyday prices. Not exactly bargain prices I would say, but probably barging prices for people trapped in Manhattan.
We scaled the store and made our way quickly to a floor dedicated to shoes. Nian had become obsessed with finding some better footwear before returning to China. We were both tired and beginning to get on one another’s nerves a bit by this time of the day. For about ten minutes I trailed behind Nian giving my honest opinion as to what shoes I thought looked nice or not, then at about the fifteen minute mark I confessed by boredom with the exercise as Nian queried me about my lack of enthusiasm. We gave up trying to find shoes at Macy’s, which as I mentioned really didn’t seem to be all that much of a bargain to me, though they certainly had a large number of items to choose from, but somehow they all just seemed to be of some bland and of unnoticeable design -- none them caught my eye as anything special.
We went through house wares quickly, and I again while there was a huge selection, nothing especially really seemed to leap out at me. Nian was becoming exasperated by my general lack of enthusiasm for anything we looked at in Macy’s.
As we went from floor to floor, the age of the building really started to become apparent. Some of the escalators where very antique and their conveyor belts were actually made of wood. This might have appeared charming had they been well maintained and standard through out the store, but no, the escalators were a hodge-podge of types, many where broken down and had to be used as stairs. The Elevators worked in a fashion, but often ignored button presses, and even when the target floor was illuminated, the elevator would slowly pass on by without pause. This was definitely some 60’s based relay technology or older controlling the lifts, and had become creaky to say the least.
I had noticed on several floors that the furniture was broken down and dirty, the kind of thing you might expect to see discarded along the road, having been thrown away having long since outlived some useful life span, but not here at Macy’s.
All this stood in stark contrast to the Macy’s sponsored spectacle we had just witnessed the night before. While Macy’s is large, I’m sure the amount of money spent on the fireworks alone would have replaced every shoddy piece of furniture in the store with enough left over to repair the escalators and maybe upgrade the control system on the elevators a bit.
Every year Macy’s promises a better 4th of July and a grander Thanksgiving’s Day Parade. Every year this must cost more and more. With competition from the internet and other specialty merchants hawking everything from shoes to electronics and lower prices that Macy’s can match, I would have to think Macy’s profits are diminishing, and perhaps have been diminishing (adjusting for inflation) since the late 80’s. But rather than spruce the old girl up Macy’s must continue its hallmark traditions at the expense of putting what profits there are back into Macy’s itself. Macy’s I think has become a victim of her own success, a success that probably zenithed somewhere in the 40s 50s and 60s, and can scarcely now afford to admit to New York and the world she is spending beyond her means in order to keep up appearances.
Of course my analysis might be way off the mark, perhaps the store routinely is allowed to lapse into disrepair during the summer months only to be made over just in time for the Holiday season. Perhaps some native New Yorker out there could provide the answer.
Nian and I exited Macy’s with Nian still a little irritated with my impatient store behavior, an irritation that spilled over into dinner at a fine Chinese restaurant where she found all my manners boorish and unacceptable, from sitting first without waiting for her (I was bone weary) to holding my chopsticks wrong (I was trying my best) to not keeping both hands on the table (Huh??? I’d never heard that one before).
Still we made it through dinner, and back to the hotel to pack for the trip home early the next morning. I hope I haven’t overstated our minor irritation with one another in the closing hours of our New York vacation. In fact, the vacation proved to be some kind of watershed moment for us, as our relationship which had some rough spots before New York seemed to smooth out of its own accord the next day on the way home. Maybe the balance of memorable and enjoyable moments, which far out weighed the few irritable ones, had become more apparent in the more leisurely pace we were returning to.
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1 Comments:
Thanks, Larry....
It's great to hear from you. Congrats on your engagement to Nian...how sweet!! :) I can't wait to see your pics, especially of China as I have never been there before.
As far as the verification field for comments is concerned, I don't know why all don't do that. It seems to be working so far to keep away the spammers. I have been on a few sites with ridiculous amount of spam... Ugly, very ugly.
By blasian lotus, at August 16, 2005
