Macy's Store - NYC

Macy's, originally R. H. Macy & Co., is a department store owned by Macy's, Inc. It is one of two divisions owned by the company, with the other being Bloomingdale's. As of July 2016, the Macy's division operates 728 department store locations in the continental United States, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and Guam, including the Herald Square flagship location in Midtown Manhattan, New York City.

Macy's has conducted the annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City since 1924 and has sponsored the city's annual Fourth of July fireworks display since 1976. Macy's Herald Square is one of the largest department stores in the world. The flagship store covers almost an entire New York City block, features about 1.1 million square feet of retail space, includes additional space for offices and storage, and serves as the endpoint for Macy's annual Thanksgiving Day parade. The value of Herald Square has been estimated at around $3 billion.

In 2015 Macy's was the largest U.S. department store company by retail sales. Macy's was the 15th-largest retailer in the United States for 2014 by revenue.

Macy's was founded by Rowland Hussey Macy, who between 1843 and 1855 opened four retail dry goods stores, including the original Macy's store in downtown Haverhill, Massachusetts, established in 1851 to serve the mill industry employees of the area. They all failed, but he learned from his mistakes. Macy moved to New York City in 1858 and established a new store named "R. H. Macy & Co." on Sixth Avenue between 13th and 14th Streets, which was far north of where other dry goods stores were at the time. On the company's first day of business on October 28, 1858 sales totaled US$11.08, equal to $306.15 today. From the beginning, Macy's logo has included a star, which comes from a tattoo that Macy got as a teenager when he worked on a Nantucket whaling ship, the Emily Morgan.

As the business grew, Macy's expanded into neighboring buildings, opening more and more departments, and used publicity devices such as a store Santa Claus, themed exhibits, and illuminated window displays to draw in customers. It also offered a money back guarantee, although it accepted only cash into the 1950s. The store also produced its own made-to-measure clothing for both men and women, assembled in an on-site factory.

In 1875, Macy took on two partners, Robert M. Valentine (1850–1879), a nephew; and Abiel T. La Forge (1842–1878) of Wisconsin, who was the husband of a cousin. Macy died in 1877 from inflammatory kidney disease (then known as Bright's disease). La Forge died the following year, and Valentine died in 1879. Ownership of the company remained in the Macy family until 1895, when the company, now called "R. H. Macy & Co.", was acquired by Isidor Straus and his brother Nathan Straus, who had previously held a license to sell china and other goods in the Macy's store.

In 1902, the flagship store moved uptown to Herald Square at 34th Street and Broadway, so far north of the other main dry goods emporia that it had to offer a steam wagonette to transport customers from 14th Street to 34th Street. Although the Herald Square store initially consisted of just one building, it expanded through new construction, eventually occupying almost the entire block bounded by Seventh Avenue on the west, Broadway on the east, 34th Street on the south and 35th Street on the north, with the exception of a small pre-existing building on the corner of 35th Street and Seventh Avenue and another on the corner of 34th Street and Broadway. This latter 5-story building was purchased by Robert H. Smith in 1900 for $375,000 (equivalent to $10.8 million in 2017) – an incredible sum at the time – with the idea of getting in the way of Macy's becoming the largest store in the world: it is largely supposed that Smith, who was a neighbor of the Macy's store on 14th Street, was acting on behalf of Siegel-Cooper, which had built what they thought was the world's largest store on Sixth Avenue in 1896. Macy's ignored the tactic, and simply built around the building, which now carries Macy's "shopping bag" sign by lease arrangement. In 1912, Isidor Straus died in the sinking of the Titanic at the age of 67 with his wife, Ida.

The original Broadway store was designed by architects De Lemos & Cordes, was built in 1901–02 by the Fuller Company and has a Palladian facade, but has been updated in many details. There were further additions to the west in 1924 and 1928, and the Seventh Avenue building in 1931, all designed by architect Robert D. Kohn, the newer buildings were increasingly Art Deco in style. In 2012, Macy's began the first full renovation of the iconic Herald Square flagship store at a reported cost of US$400,000,000. Studio V Architecture, a New York-based firm, was the overall Master Plan architect of the project. Studio V's fresh design of the department store raised controversy over the nature of contemporary design and authentic restoration.

The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places as a National Historic Landmark in 1978. The store has several wooden escalators still in operation.

Every year, Macy's is noted for its elaborate animated holiday and Christmas window displays in many locations across the U.S., but most notably at the Herald Square location. Each year presents a different theme shown in six windows on the Broadway side of the building. Each window includes animated displays with complex scenery, attracting thousands people to view them. The windows are currently designed, fabricated and animated by Standard Transmission Productions, located in Red Hook, Brooklyn.

In 2007, Macy's launched a curated public art exhibition at the Herald Square flagship using its windows as a means to display pieces from several fashion designers including Misaki Kawai, Anna Sui and John F. Simon Jr.. The exhibit was titled Art Under Glass and was viewable to the public during the summer of 2007 through that year's fashion week.

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