Free Republic
Browse · Search
Bloggers & Personal
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Department store apocalypse is taking its toll on NYC
The New York Post ^ | July 14, 2018 | Steve Cuozzo

Posted on 07/16/2018 8:22:22 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet

I’m going to miss Lord & Taylor like mad when the Fifth Avenue flagship closes next year. It isn’t only because of the unlikely bargains I scored on its often-deserted men’s floors — a red vinyl Perry Ellis-label jacket, marked down from $79.95 to $39.95 that strangers hilariously mistake for Armani, and a wool winter coat as good as any for $49.99.

I won’t miss the once-charming but more recently cheap-looking holiday windows that weren’t worth waiting on line for. But Lord & Taylor, like every big department store, offered a welcoming civility that softened the city’s rough edges. New York will be slightly less human without it, however obsolete its business model. Never again will the public enjoy the store’s grand main floor with its noble vaulted ceiling, arched mirrors and stately columns.

The shutdown is one of up to 10 Lord & Taylor closures of a total 50 stores planned by chain owner Hudson’s Bay Company. It comes amid a nationwide department store apocalypse. Hudson’s Bay, which owns 488 stores including Saks Fifth Avenue, is battling high debt, declining sales and falling stock prices.

Another industry giant, Macy’s Inc., which also owns Bloomingdale’s, has closed 14 percent of its stores since 2014, while its same-store sales in 2017 fell 4.3 percent compared with 2016. J.C. Penney closed 138 locations, or 14 percent of its stores, last year.

Jeffrey Roseman, vice chairman of Newmark Knight Frank’s retail brokerage division, told The Post, “The need for an eight-story, multi-hundred-thousand-square-foot department store in major cities is limited at best.”(continued)

(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Computers/Internet; Society
KEYWORDS: economy; internet; newyork; nyc; retail
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-4041-43 next last

1 posted on 07/16/2018 8:22:22 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: 2ndDivisionVet
For political reasons, Hudson Bay Company just dumped Ivanka's women's clothing line. Hudson's Bay Company is a sinking ship.
 
2 posted on 07/16/2018 8:34:38 PM PDT by Governor Dinwiddie (MAGA in the mornin', MAGA in the evenin', MAGA at suppertime . . .)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: 2ndDivisionVet
I remember walking down 5th Ave. a week before Christmas back in the late '80s. The storefronts of all the departments stores were decorated and beautiful. It is a shame that that era has passed.
3 posted on 07/16/2018 8:52:10 PM PDT by Cowboy Bob ("Other People's Money" = The life blood of Liberalism)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: 2ndDivisionVet

Never heard of them we shop at Walmart, pull your pants up leftists.


4 posted on 07/16/2018 8:53:15 PM PDT by Joe Miner (u)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: 2ndDivisionVet
Wanamaker's in downtown Philly was a fascinating place as late as the 70s, complete with a ginormous theater pipe organ beat heard in the luncheon room on the eighth floor. Sic transit gloria.
5 posted on 07/16/2018 9:06:43 PM PDT by chajin ("There is no other name under heaven given among people by which we must be saved." Acts 4:12)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: 2ndDivisionVet

So many grand old stores going, going, gone. The times they are changing, and really not for the best, but then I’m way older than so many who don’t really care.


6 posted on 07/16/2018 9:06:57 PM PDT by rockinqsranch (Dems, Libs, Socialists call 'em what you will they all have fairies livin' in their trees.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: chajin

Beat=best


7 posted on 07/16/2018 9:07:26 PM PDT by chajin ("There is no other name under heaven given among people by which we must be saved." Acts 4:12)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]

To: Joe Miner
** Never heard of them we shop at Walmart, pull your pants up leftists. ** Lord & Taylor is on walmart.com 😉
8 posted on 07/16/2018 9:12:54 PM PDT by sockmonkey (I am an America First, not Israel First FReeper.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: Governor Dinwiddie

Trump curse in action?


9 posted on 07/16/2018 9:13:36 PM PDT by setha (England: Once great, now lost to the Diversity Deviants & Mohammedans.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: setha
Good catch! Yep. The Trump Curse.
 
10 posted on 07/16/2018 9:17:45 PM PDT by Governor Dinwiddie (MAGA in the mornin', MAGA in the evenin', MAGA at suppertime . . .)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]

To: rockinqsranch

[So many grand old stores going, going, gone. The times they are changing]

The PC 2nd and 3rd generation heirs are largely responsible for the demise of the grand old stores.


11 posted on 07/16/2018 9:20:42 PM PDT by stars & stripes forever (Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord. Psalm( 32:12)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: 2ndDivisionVet

Online shopping claims more victims. It’s far cheaper and easier to sit at home and open the mail than it is to drive to some distant location, walk for hours, and battle crowds. Their business model simply doesn’t have the market share it once had. If they didn’t see it coming, and adjust accordingly, then they deserve to lose even more market share. We express our preferences with our dollars. Period.


12 posted on 07/16/2018 9:25:09 PM PDT by Teacher317 (We have now sunk to a depth at which restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Teacher317

Thing i hate about online shopping...you dont see or feel the product. As a simple example...i ordered some cargo pants....but the product with exact same name had changed...the fabric was much thinner in heft...there were less stitches

You dont know the fit and finish...and when you order the product you dont know if that particular manufacturing run was a good one. If product is not good....it is a hassle to return...


13 posted on 07/16/2018 9:40:51 PM PDT by Getready (Wisdom is more valuable than gold and diamonds, and harder to find.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 12 | View Replies]

To: Getready

Amazon is moving to a business model where you can try things on in a ‘showroom’ or where a wardrobe consultant will make a housecall to push certain product lines and styles at you.


14 posted on 07/16/2018 9:54:12 PM PDT by a fool in paradise (Spygate's clock began in 2015 - what did President Obama know and when did he know it)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 13 | View Replies]

To: 2ndDivisionVet

I sew my own clothes except for Walmart jeans.

All I know about Lord and Taylor is the Boston bombers’ mama liked shoplifting there.


15 posted on 07/16/2018 10:04:42 PM PDT by bgill (CDC site, "We don't know how people are infected with Ebola.")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Joe Miner

I used to go to Lord & Taylor’s elegant stores in NYC, I had to look it up, but it was founded in Manhattan in 1826 - 192 years ago.

There used to be a time that “department stores” were very nice, and were decorated beautifully.

As to Walmart, I’m in Los Angeles my whole life [70 years] - and I’ve never shopped at a Walmart ... and never even seen one. I heard of one here but it was in a very bad part of town, I never had a desire to visit.


16 posted on 07/16/2018 10:47:51 PM PDT by BunnySlippers (I love Bull Markets!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: 2ndDivisionVet

Sq footage rental rates in nyc are outrageous.


17 posted on 07/16/2018 11:43:55 PM PDT by Secret Agent Man ( Gone Galt; Not averse to Going Bronson.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Getready

Well look, there are purchases that are easily made online, and for more important ones, that you care about, you get them at a store.


18 posted on 07/16/2018 11:48:39 PM PDT by Secret Agent Man ( Gone Galt; Not averse to Going Bronson.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 13 | View Replies]

To: 2ndDivisionVet

Wait, he bought a red vinyl jacket? Should we stop reading there?


19 posted on 07/17/2018 12:43:16 AM PDT by GnuThere
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: 2ndDivisionVet

My hometown city of Pittsburgh used to have several grand old department stores with eight floors in the heart of the Golden Triangle. That was in days when there were no suburban malls and the whole family would drive downtown, park cheap and make a day if it, go to a movie at a downturn theater, eat at the department store restaurant (it was upstairs with a veranda view of the floors below). Or you could eat cheap at Woolworths lunch counter if you wanted to shop the five and ten goods like children’s toys and records. In the early sixties, my family even bought a stereo console downtown, one of those gorgeous floor models everybody had as a centerpiece of their livingroom. You felt safe walking through downtown and people were courteous and friendly.


20 posted on 07/17/2018 1:39:58 AM PDT by Ciexyz (I have one issue and it's my economic well-being.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-4041-43 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
Bloggers & Personal
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson