Thursday, July 8, 2010

wannamacy

I know everyone in the world (my world) hates the old Wannamaker Macy's in Center City.
I don't care.
It's my favorite.

It's in between work and everywhere I need to go, and it's air conditioned, and old fashioned, and fancy, and they have a giant bronze eagle sculpture, and they have a pipe organ concert every day at lunch. 

Macy's?  I like you.

6 comments:

pinchefresco said...

Who hates Macy's? I go there all the time. I love it so much too.

Occasionally (especially during the One Day Sale) I actually buy things there.

Around Chritmas, I practically live there.

It's the best way to get from Market to Chestnut.

Let's have a date there.

pinchefresco said...

*Christmas

carina romano said...

isnt that where "mannequin" was filmed?

Bangs said...

They used to have a monorail. In the store.

LuLu said...

It's also my favorite Sue! I generally hate Macy's (sorry Andy, the clothes are crap and over priced) but this one makes me happy.

pinchefresco said...

Lulu: yeah, I don't usually buy clothes there: more like Martha Stewart Home wine glasses.

Carina: "Mannequin," unless I'm mistaken, was filmed at Strawbridge and Clothier up the street. It's not there anymore.

When I was little, the Wanamaker eagle (it was their company mascot) was a kind of citywide landmark. Before the advent of cell phones, if you were meeting up with friends in town, you would always say, "Meet me at the eagle." Later, it became Hecht's, then Lord and Taylor, and finally Macy's. When Lord and Taylor came in, they tried to take the eagle away, and there was such an uproar that they ended up leaving it there.

I also really love the "JW" mosaics on the way in from Market, and the fact that they have a "fur vault," and the little cafe (which used to be a tea room--old ladies get really pissed about that), and the fact that the organist sits in the women's lingerie section.

It's a fascinating building.I heard somewhere that Wanamaker and Marshall Fields and a few other department store industrialists had this insane business philosophy that was like super-capitalism: the idea that people could literally purify their souls by becoming ultimate consumers. They thought shopping should be a religious experience; hence the towering ceiling with its cathedral-styled arches, the tiled mosaics, the pipe organ, the pew-like oak furniture (most of which isn't there anymore). It really does feel like going to church, except it's fun.

EXCROV