Over the weekend, I took my son up to New York City for the day and we tramped more than 60 blocks between Midtown, Downtown and Central Park, with a gazillion stops in our travels.
This included the original Macy’s in Manhattan, the same site of the annual Thanksgiving Day Parade. Originally built in 1902 and certified a historical landmark in 1978, the nine floor Macy’s is something you’ll never forget as the largest retail store in the United States. I’ve always called this Macy’s location “a city within a city.”
Comprised of 2.5 million square feet total with 1.25 million feet devoted to retail space, Macy’s, like most New York commercial stores, is a multi-tiered adventure. I’m still holding vigil for the long-gone four level Virgin Megastore, always a past mandatory stop anytime I’ve visited New York. This trip with my kid hitting my 14th time.
Macy’s Manhattan, plotted in the neon-cast shadow of Times Square, with its massive block circumvention of 34th and 35th Streets, Broadway and Seventh Avenue, has its own McDonald’s and one of the few remaining Toys ‘R Us outlets. It’s biggest charm, however, is those 20 oak and ash Otis jumbo cleat wooden escalators running through the fifth and ninth floors. It’s irresistible not to imagine a century’s worth of New Yorkers and visitors, taking the same exact mobile pathways.
Yes, they’re modernized and braced to meet inspection code, but the retro rickety resonance remains the same. Macy’s Herald Square is hardly a road lesser traveled, especially if you’ve been to New York enough times to know a public bathroom is a rarer commodity than homegrown horticulture. Yet, those wonderfully giddy wooden escalators are a must-do blast from the past joy ride whenever you hit the Big Apple. My sixth, for the record.
–Photos by Ray Van Horn, Jr.
Roads Lesser Traveled 
Thanks for the tour. Happy just to read about NY!
Stay-at-Home country girl here. 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Oh, man, so I’ll just have to toss up more NY pics from my archives as time goes on. Good for you! If I could afford NY, I’d live there, but it would have to be Midtown, and my fiancee wouldn’t have it. Pipe dream, like a pipe dream of living in the Outer Banks. The hurricanes are what deters me there. I’ve been pretty much country-suburban my whole life. Thanks for reading!
LikeLike
Those stairs used to scare the hell out of me when we would go to Macys every Christmas season.🙄 I used to love visiting Virgin…..I could spend hours in that store! Can’t believe its been 20 years since I’ve been there…😥
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’m a hyperactive adrenaline machine when I’m in NY. Every time I’d go during Christmas season, I had to wander into Macy’s aside from looking at the window displays, but because it’s so magical and it has that feeling of the department store in A Christmas Story.
I dropped a pretty at Virgin over the years and loved taking things to the listen station to sample. That style of marketing worked on me!!! Such a magical place in its own right. We even went downstairs and caught a movie the year Broadway went on strike and I’d taken my ex to see Rent for her birthday. She was understandably inconsolable, but we watched Darkness Falls in the basement of Virgin and raided the hell out of the story buying albums and DVDs, lol…
LikeLike
Very cool, Ray! I’m adding this to my NYC to-do list. Thanks for a great post.
LikeLiked by 1 person
And thank you guys for reading as always! Yes, make the time for Macy’s. It’s so worth it and not just for a needed bathroom break, lol… Keep that in mind with your travel itinerary, nearly every store and chain style coffee shop or restaurant will not offer a public restroom. They used to give a code if you bought something, but now, the bathrooms are employee only and hidden from view. I’d just bought my wedding jacket at another Macy’s location, so my conscience was clear about taking the escalator ride for the 6th time on the way to the bathroom, lol. Basement level and 7th floors, for the record.
LikeLiked by 1 person