I love Chicago. Because, among other reasons, we are a bunch of seriously stubborn bastards.
When Federated (now Macy’s, Inc.) decided to turn Marshall Field’s into Macy’s, the entire goddamned city said, “Don’t do it, idiots. We will stop shopping there.”
Federated said, “Nonsense! We’ve done it in several other cities with no problem! You say you won’t shop at Macy’s, but we know better!”
The entire goddamned city said, “Dudes, this is Chicago. And you are coming in here with your New York store and fucking with Marshall Field’s. And if you don’t get what those two things mean, then you really, really don’t get your market here.”
Federated said, “Ha! We’ll see about that!”
Well, they saw about that. Chicago Carless catalogues the mind-boggling string of fuck-ups by the Chicago Macy’s, including their declining sales, store closures, and recent fruit fly infestation at what used to be the best food court in the city. It’s delicious reading for locals — and anyone else who hates big corporate entities who think they can increase profits while refusing to take into account the human beings needed to purchase their wares.
Like so many Chicagoans, I was raised loyal to Field’s. And I mean loyal. Like, there was no other department store worth bothering with, period. (Is that remotely reasonable — especially when Field’s had already changed hands repeatedly, and the quality and service were declining for years before Macy’s ever came along? No, of course not. But it is what it is — a simple fact for a whole lot of us.) After I moved away, I would go to Field’s State Street and drop a bundle every time I came to visit. When I moved back, I was giddy about being able to go down there and wander around the awesome flagship store any time I felt like it. And I brought my credit cards.
I’ve spent money on clothes there once since it became Macy’s, and then only under duress. The only other money I’ve given them in the last year has been at the food court — and that’s clearly not gonna happen again now.
Dear Macy’s, Inc.,
Dudes, this is Chicago. You came in here with your New York store and fucked with Marshall Field’s.
And now you’re scrambling to keep it open.
Are you getting the local market yet?
Love,
Kate Harding
P.S. I spent $300 at Nordstrom yesterday.
I don’t even live in Chicago anymore, and =i= was pissed when i heard about the Macy’s crap. I’m glad to hear they’re doing miserably. I have too many memories of Marshall Field’s to be okay with it turning into a freaking Macy’s. *spit*
It’s sad here in Minneapolis, too. First they took our beloved Dayton’s and turned it into a Field’s. That was hard enough, but at least the quality didn’t suffer (though I continued to write my checks to Dayton’s for years after the fact). But now that they’re Macy’s, I won’t go near them, and don’t know anyone else who will either. The worst part was the old Downtown Dayton’s – similar to the State street Field’s – getting stripped of all of it’s history.
I’ve never been to the Macy’s on State street but we went to Water Tower Place last weekend and that Macy’s was DUMB. I went up like 8 floors to check out the plus dept and let me tell you, not worth it. The Sephora there is niiiice, though.
I’m thinking about organizing a fat girl field trip downtown once it gets closer to fall. I know there’s a nice Lane Bryant, Ashley Stewart and Nordstrom. I wish there were more shopping options :(
Anyway, I’ll post about everywhere it if I decide to get it going. :D
I used to think of Macy’s as upscale… when they were in New York and that was pretty much it. I remember asking my mom specifically if we could make a trip there to shop on our trip to NYC when I was 11.
Fast-forward to today… I really have no desire to go in there. It’s like some kind of weird bastardization of an upscale department store and a Kohl’s. I like both in their place, but a combination of the two is not doing it for me.
I got used to Hudson’s becoming Marshall Field’s. That was (eventually) OK with me because the merchandise and “feel” of the store didn’t seem to change much. Hudson’s becoming Macy’s… uh-uh. I don’t think I’ve spent a single dollar there since that name change.
Sadly, they will probably shutter that store before they’ll bring back the Field’s nameplate. I imagine the building won’t suffer the same fate as the Hudson’s headquarters in Detroit (as a commenter at the other blog mentioned)… someone else will probably buy the building and put it to good use. But they will never just admit defeat, reverse the renaming of the Chicagoland area stores, and put the old management or at least local management back in charge. Which is probably the only way they could make it work at this point.
I looove the feilds on state street. It is just close enough to my office that we occasionally went over lunch. (Pre Macy’s Takeover) And it is such a gorgeous building, probably the nicest department store I have ever been to.
I had only lived here for a year or so when they did the takeover and even I could tell it was a dumbass move.
Oh, and I forgot to mention that they suffer from the same plus-size disconnect as pretty much every other expensive department store. Go to the regular size section and you find cute stuff. Even if I can’t afford it, I’d buy it if I could. Go to the plus size section and I’m supposed to pay through the nose for the frumpiest possible moleskin pantsuits with elastic waists or cutesy novelty t-shirts, the equivalent of which can be found at any Wal-Mart (not that I buy them there either, because they’re butt ass ugly). The chasm between the chambray, tapered legs, camp shirts, and elastic waists of Elisabeth and the relatively decent looking pieces of the other Liz Claiborne lines, in particular, is staggering.
Dear Macy’s,
I haven’t bought a box of Frango Mints since you bought Marshall Fields. You guys are fools.
Love,
Laurie Ruettimann
Cue evil Daffy Duck laugh.
I love Chicago, I do. Even as a long time downstater, the city had its own special charm. Now that Chicago has rejected Macy’s almost organically, I love it just a little more.
I walk by Field’s (I refer to the historic landmark building, which is Field’s no matter what they’re calling the company that sells the stuff inside) every day on my way to the office, and the only time I darken the doors is to cut through on my way to the Old Navy. Oh, wait, I don’t go there anymore, either!
Walk right on past the ON and on to the TJ Maxx just down the block. They’ve got a bunch of dresses right now, lots of them on clearance. On Saturday, I bought two fab dresses, one for $16, one for $30.
Macy’s took over the hometown institution department store here as well. I grew up shopping there and haven’t spent a penny there since it became Macy’s. Come in and trash my traditions? You can forget getting my cash.
Thank you for reminding me I haven’t worn my Fuck Macy’s t-shirt in awhile. I’ll go dig it out right now!
Yeah, Macy’s Inc is also running Bloomingdale’s, as well. I wonder if they’ll manage to run Bloomie’s into the ground. I’m not the biggest fan of Macy’s Inc, for a few reasons!
Wendy, I WANT THAT SHIRT. Where did it come from?
Also, from the small world files, I was friends with Andrew Huff in high school and had a tremendously humiliating crush on him.
Yea, they killed Meier and Frank too.
A Pacific Northwest institution since 1857.
Do you know when people started using the Oregon Trail?
1851.
A store that once had it’s merchandise delivered by covered wagon doesn’t deserve this kind of death.
all of my chicago pals have had the very same attitude. love it.
and as a woman in business, i like to see arrogance get its comeuppance!
It’s that way for non-locals too. Moving here from Minneapolis, I’ve been through this before. Field’s had been owned by Dayton’s (the then parent of Target) for quite a while. They changed the name of the Minneapolis-area stores from Dayton’s to Marshall Field’s a few years ago. Great concern, but overall, it was okay. It was the same store. The quality was the same, the food court (MarketPlace) was the same, etc. I still shopped there.
So then I moved here. Loved Marshall Field’s. It was still what I expected. Then Macy’s bought it, and screwed it all up. The clothes changed. The labels I was looking for were no longer there. The replacement labels didn’t seem as good (indeed, for dress shirts, I was all about Marshall Field’s, and I hate the Macy’s house brand replacements), and the selection and sizes have shrunk.
I used to shop there, and now I don’t shop there. It’s that simple.
I used to eat there, too. I loved the MarketPlace. Coming from Minneapolis, I loved the restaurants in Dayton’s/Field’s there. Here, I loved that bit of home. Until, you know, fruit flies.
Fucking gross, never eating there again ever.
Macy’s is becoming the Evil Empire! Here in Boston they conquered and devoured our beloved Filene’s. I don’t know anyone who shops at Macy’s now.
Macy’s is scarcely better than Kmart. It’s always a rotten mess, with ill-fitting clothing strewn everywhere and not a salesperson to be found. Their whole coupon system is a lesson in frustration, unless you majored in Bait & Switch marketing with a focus in semantics.
What they did to marshall fields is abominable and i’m so glad chicagoans are having none of it. It’s a shame to see a beautiful building house such a lemon of a company. What’s their slogan again? “cheap shit at lofty prices”? something like that….
I hang my head and confess guiltily that I still go to
Dayton’sMacy’s because they’re my only local MAC counter. I’m a bad girl.Desperate times call for desperate measures, everstar.
It’s so sad when history gets paved over, both in Minneapolis and Chicago. Especially when it’s paved over with a crappier store!
At least you have Nordstrom, which we sadly don’t have in NY and has the best shoes.
As a kid growing up in the NYC area, I used to love the Macy’s on Herald Square. Now that was a store, seven flooors of everything you could ever want in the world. (Well, maybe the plus-size clothing selection wasn’t the greatest, but that’s because nobody was making the stuff then.) Those were the days when department stores carried things like “notions,” you could actually buy things there like embroidery floss, books, etc. Kinda like Wal-Mart does now, only with a touch of class.
While the NYC flagship store and perhaps the downtown SF store are still impressive if only for their sheer size, now Macy’s elsewhere is just a giant shark eating department stores like Robinsons-May and The Broadway in LA, Bon Marche in Seattle, Meier and Frank in Portland, and of course all the other examples cited above. All these stores have about as much original charm and character as a Wal-Mart, plus they’re overpriced to boot. I don’t have a whole lot of discretionary income for things like recreational shopping, and what they have generally doesn’t interest me much. Even if I was a size 8, and affluent, it probably wouldn’t interest me much. My mom is a size 4 and never goes there; like you, Kate, she’d rather go to Nordstrom, where the quality is better.
And yeah, they were extra-double stupid not to recognize that Chicago is not Seattle or LA or Portland or even Boston, and that people were fiercely loyal to Marshall Field’s. What they did was somewhat akin to Jerry Reinsdorf buying the Cubs and blowing up Wrigley Field and building a U.S. Cellular Field clone in that spot. Eeeeef.
When people say things like, “If the front door says Macy’s I’m NOT going in there,” how dumb do you have to be not to listen to them? Would it have killed them to retain the brand name in that market and left things the way they were? What part of “if it’s not broken don’t fix it” is it so hard to understand?
Companies seem to have this fervent belief that standardizing their branding, nameplates, strategies, marketing, etc. is necessary for success and an unbreakable rule of business. Now, I know almost nothing about business… and maybe this is a recent development… but it seems to me that, especially recently, the opposite is almost true. People like their local landmarks and are starting to rebel against the feeling that you can travel across the country and find the same stores, restaurants, etc. in every town in America.
I wish that if Macy’s had to buy all of these chains, they could have (particularly for the ones that were doing OK already) maintained the names and essential features, even top-selling brands, decor, and local management of the local stores while still making whatever changes they felt were needed at the larger corporate level to keep themselves profitable.
It seems like their strategy was “eliminate the competition by buying it” and that was about as far as it went.
I love “What Not to Wear” but it’s been like nails on a chalkboard lately, watching Clinton and Stacy try to convince me that I should approach any random sullen employee of my local Macy’s and she’ll have the expertise to outfit me with a chic, flattering new wardrobe perfect for my body type. I’m sure the employee will have even less interest in this now, if Macy’s has been trying to finance their screw-ups by cutting associates’ pay, as indicated in the Chicago Carless post.
Hmm… I see that as a Hudson’s loyalist I am part of the pattern of “conglomeratization” that culminated in the Macy’s takeover. I always thought Marshall Field’s bought the Dayton-Hudson Corporation (when they changed all the stores to Field’s) but apparently it was the other way around.
Re: the t-shirt…alas, a site called NewAthens.org was making them last year but I don’t think they’re selling them anymore. I looked all over today!
You seem to have missed the real issue, which is that the only thing more exciting to a kid than the Dad’s Root Beer sign (as viewed from the train) was seeing the REAL Santa Claus at the State Street Marshall Fields.
And don’t give me none of that crap about miracles on 34th St. Everybody knows the real Santa was at Marshall Fields. Mom told me so.
I invite all of you Field’s Fans to click on:
http://www.fieldsfanschicago.org
and see how many people just like you also miss Field’s. Join our Boycott of macy’s. Join us in early September to protest in front of the Marshall Field’s flagship landmark department store, which has been ruined by macy’s onslaught.
Tell us your thoughts on the weblog. Remember, it’s:
http://www.fieldsfanschicago.org The group is getting larger and larger and larger by the week, and the website has more hits and comments than ever before!
What can you do?!?
* Boycott macy’s and bloomingdale’s until the name and service and grand merchandise selection of Marshall Field’s returns,
* Write to the Chicago newspapers and TV media with your opinions.
*Join us in weekly protests in front of 111 N. State. (See the website for more information.)
* Tell your friends, co-workers, neighbors and business associates to boycott macy’s and bloomingdale’s. (Bloomingdale’s is owned by macy.s)
We need you! Thanks for your opinions on THIS site.