What it means to lose Macy’s
For serious shoppers, the July 13 announcement of the Downtown Pittsburgh Macy’s department store closing is good news and bad news. Good news because the store will start a clearance sale July 20 that will run until early September, meaning amazing bargains. Bad news because Downtown Pittsburgh will be without a department store once it does close (Saks Fifth Avenue shut its Downtown doors for good in March of 2012).
Prior to becoming Macy’s in 2005, the store was Kaufmann’s, and it had served Downtown since 1887. It’s closing because the property has been sold to the Philadelphia-based Core Realty, which has plans to renovate the building’s 13 stories into retail space, apartments and possibly a hotel.
Granted, Macy’s was only using the first four floors of the space, making it a shadow of the retail mecca that it once was. Of course, we are living in a much different era than 1887. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, going shopping in Pittsburgh was an event in and of itself. Ladies dressed their absolute best – replete in dresses, hats, heels and gloves – to shop. Today, shopping can be done with a few clicks of a mouse, no waiting in line at the checkout counter, no need to get dressed, no need to travel to Downtown, no need to pay for parking.
And like any other industry, the modern, online experience is changing our physical landscape. What the suburban shopping malls did to massive Downtown stores after World War II, the Internet is continuing to do. Macy’s chief stores officer released a statement that said: “For the past four years, Macy’s has been investigating the best possible use for this property, especially given the large amount of unproductive and unused space on the upper floors.”
And while many saw the decision coming, the loss of Macy’s signals another loss of our nostalgic past – the beautifully decorated holiday windows will leave a void in the Downtown landscape, and let’s not forget the iconic clock at the corner of Fifth Avenue and Smithfield Street. There’s no word yet if it will be preserved in the building’s renovation.
We hope that Core preserves the historical integrity of the building, and we certainly hope that the “Kaufmann’s clock” remains. We understand that things have to change, but in order to move forward, we shouldn’t lose sight of who we once were.