Was Chicago better off when..... (live, deal, tree)
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Anyone been to a Von Mauer's? Reminds me of Marshall Fields & have Midwestern roots. Von Maur About Us
If the profits justified the expense, it would be cool if they purchased the downtown location from Macy's with the rights to use Marshall Field's name at that location. Von Mauer at Marshall Field Building. I know it is still day-dreaming, but a more "realistic" sort.
Von Maur actually considered opening a store at Water Tower Place a few years ago, but I'm not sure why it never happened. Their store would've been in part of the former Lord and Taylor space there, IIRC.
Quote:
Originally Posted by edsg25
Macy's should put the name "Marshall Field's" on the State Street store, the one that really matters. Keep the rest of the Chicago stores as Macy's and make WTP their downtown anchor.
Then, turn the State Street store into a one of a kind, using the three brand names Macy's Inc. owns
In other words, some departments would be those taken from Macy's, some from Bloomingdale's, and some from what were the departments of Marshall Field's.
Bring in a fourth element by including some of those independent venders that were part of "Down Under", the lower level of Field's (haven't seen this space since the Field's days as I avoid Macy's; don't know if they have kept this going).
So it's a four way mix (Macy's/Bloomie's/Field's/indies) all under the banner of "Marshall Field's", a huge selling point to Chicagoans, suburbanites, and tourists from out-of-town.
And for Macy's a win/win. They keep the chain name on all other stores, doing whatever they wish to WTP to make it a true anchor so their penetration into Chicagoland is not affected at all, while gaining good will (and profitiablility) by turning the State Street store back to Field's, creating this hybred which would be highly attractive to customers (and thus lucrative)...imagine the critical mass this could reach in an improved economy with the juxtaposition of Millennium Park, a resurrected Field's, and a (hopefully) healthier Block 37 with hopes that Sullivan Center (CPS) and all those new East Loop condos will propel the growth.
Love that idea to bring back the Field's name to the State St. store, while making Water Tower Place the flagship Macy's in the downtown Chicago area. That's a great one! Too bad that'll never happen, though....
Love that idea to bring back the Field's name to the State St. store, while making Water Tower Place the flagship Macy's in the downtown Chicago area. That's a great one! Too bad that'll never happen, though....
thanks, tony; and a good or great idea is usually the kiss of death, isn't it?
Macy's Inc. would be more likely to come up with an idea borrowed from Field's previous owner, Dayton Hudson, by turning the State Street store into a discount marketplace and call the darn thing "Off Target".
and let me share what I consider to be a great irony:
If the bufoons at Macy's had half a brain, they could have gotten their total penetration into the Chicago market (that's what it was all about; a national chain being able to use national advertising) while keeping the State Street store as Marshall Field's. The irony? It might have made Macy's far more successful here, possibly helping it rather than hurting it. The irony part?:
a stand alone Marshall Field's, one store only and that store on State, would actually have enhanced the concept of "Marshall Field's" which was dilluted with all the suburban stores that basically were Generic Retailer, Inc. Field's alone on State had the capability of bringing back the magic as only a single store operation could.
thanks, tony; and a good or great idea is usually the kiss of death, isn't it?
Macy's Inc. would be more likely to come up with an idea borrowed from Field's previous owner, Dayton Hudson, by turning the State Street store into a discount marketplace and call the darn thing "Off Target".
and let me share what I consider to be a great irony:
If the bufoons at Macy's had half a brain, they could have gotten their total penetration into the Chicago market (that's what it was all about; a national chain being able to use national advertising) while keeping the State Street store as Marshall Field's. The irony? It might have made Macy's far more successful here, possibly helping it rather than hurting it. The irony part?:
a stand alone Marshall Field's, one store only and that store on State, would actually have enhanced the concept of "Marshall Field's" which was dilluted with all the suburban stores that basically were Generic Retailer, Inc. Field's alone on State had the capability of bringing back the magic as only a single store operation could.
yeah. such a squandered opportunity, no doubt. I was walking down State with a friend recently trying to explain how awesome the window displays were when I was a kid in the early 80s.
It's so pitiful by way of comparison now I'm pretty sure she didn't believe me.
Just found this forum, and thought I would join the fun!
Having lived in Chicago for 46 years, I have seen many changes, some good, some not so good. I certainly would not trade growing up when I did, but I do truly appreciate the more international feel that one gets in this great city of ours. We have been a magnate for the world, and it has only enhanced the greatness of our town. I have lived in Edgewater-Andersonville all my life and, when I was a kid, everybody was Scandinavian. When the Vietnam war ended, refugees from SE Asia, as well as other countries that were experiencing problems, flooded into the community. In the process, they brought in sights, sounds and smells that I had never experienced before. It was all very strange, but also very exciting! Edgewater-Andersonville has never looked back, and is one of the most diverse communities in the city.
So that's my take. The past was wonderful, and I do miss certain things, but Chitown 2011 is a WORLD CLASS city!!!!
yeah. such a squandered opportunity, no doubt. I was walking down State with a friend recently trying to explain how awesome the window displays were when I was a kid in the early 80s.
It's so pitiful by way of comparison now I'm pretty sure she didn't believe me.
Field's was the highlight of any walk down State, so I'm totally with you.
But, even though the circumstances were far different and the chain goes on, I see things being a double hit on State Street: both Field's and Carsons. And Carsons windows were well worth the walk a block south.
State Street was a great street when those two great stores graced it.
Mine was a topic that is easily misconstued. It deals with change and change is a constant. It harks of nostalgia, even when nostalgia was not the intent, because constant change leaves the previous generation seeking that older, familiar world it once knew. and laments. nostalgia elevates "the good old days", even though we know the good old days never existed.
But within that framework of constant change and an understandable desire to hold on to what was is something that blocks us from seeing realities.
truth is, that while there were no "good old days" and that all eras deal with change and recreating ourselves and one can easily note: this is just a different time; get used to it....there are differences between eras. And they can be compared.
Certainly the decent that Germany went through in the 1930s could not be relegated to "just another era" or "just get used to it". There are times of rise and there are times of fall.
If you were to reread my original post, you will note that not one thing I wrote spoke of an institution of the past that is no around today. Mine only questioned whether those institutions of the past which were under local control were part of a better fabric of life than what those institutions are today: corporate, national/international, removed from locality and sense of place, generic rather than Chicago.
When you stop living locally, when everything is alike and all things are brought to their least common denominator, are you making a strong argument for a society in deep decline? I suggested...damned right you are.
Chicago, bless her, has created in the most recent times Millennium Park, a magnificent civic place, a celebration of life, a grand scale of public construction for the public good that is incredibly rare today. OK, it did so with some of the very corporate sponsership I abhor, but in this case I can life with the corporate names knowing without them, in such a sad era as this, Millennium Park could never have been built.
But what about other spaces in our city. Did Macy's Inc. enrich Chicago in any way by turning Marshall Field's into Macy's? If corporations were first chartered in the United States with a need to show a public service along with the needs of its shareholders, how did Macy's serve the Chicago public at all?
Did our sense of place and sense of the commons improve when the new Comiskey Park became US Cellular Field. Is that the type of name you want for a public venue in Chicago? Did you prefer the name Chicago Stadium to the United Center? Would you have preferred that the new Soldier Field had been named Haliburton We-Support-the-Troops Stadium?''
We each have to answer these questions for ourselves, have to evaluate, have to determine what are values are. What happens to us when we live less and less locally, when each place becomes generic, when we make a cross country drive (though few of us do) and find the exact same fast food joints and big box retailers everywhere we go? Generic USA. And if you want to see the local differences, all that is available to you along the way is when you get off the interstate exit, to drive a bit further to the old downtowns which you will note are boarded up, along with the jobs the stores supported and the factories and plants near by, also closed as a global economy destroyed what was local....and often left little in its wake except for destruction.
Again: can you afford not to live locally? Can you afford to live without a sense of place? can you afford to live in total anonimity when the concept of community no longer exists and no place is home, cities are interchangeable and generic?
It isn't about turning back the clock. It is about turning it forward. When Chicago, one of the iconically individual cities in the United States, can reach a point where it shares too much in common, too much of the same things as every other place, have we lost our path on how to live? And, if so, don't we need to find a way back, not to abort our technologies which helped get us to where we are today, but to use those technologies to help us get back to living more locally and making Chicago Chicago again?
I don't get the big deal about Millenium Park. I live right down the street a mile and never go there. However I do go to Grant and Burnhan Parks a great deal and I often go to McGuane and Armour Square Parks. I like to sit on bench under a tree and relax, smoke a cigar. When you've seen Millenium once that's about it unless you're going to a concert. I don't see anywhere to play fast-pitching there.
• Marshall Field’s was Marshall Field’s and not Macy’s and it and Carson Pirie Scott were locally owned and both graced State Street (where they lavished money on their stores and had a strong relationship with the city and might both still be in operation today if they had stayed themselves)?
• When First National Bank of Chicago and Continental Illinois anchored the financial district and were atune to the city’s and the region’s needs?
• When local journalism was strong and Chicago had 4 or more local newspapers, not competing with the likes of USA Today? When journalism was journalism and newspapers told what had to be told in detail, not in cyber bits?
• When local restaurants like Henrici’s, Algauers, Fritzels, the Pump Room (non-LEYE version), etc., ruled the dining scene,not national chains, identical in every city?
• When quirky, personality filled Riverview stood, not some generic Great America?
• When hotels like the Drake and Palmer House were real Chicago institutions, locally owned, not some Hilton?
• When Wrigley Field was the model for other ballparks around the nation with its own individual personality and designed for the fan and not for high rollers in the luxury suites, a time when Chicago had a similiar ballpark, Comiskey Park, on the South Side?
• When grand movie palaces like the Chicago, the State Lake, the Granada, the Uptown, etc., stood and awed their customers....and people dressed up to go to the Chicago, the State Lake, and other downtown movie palaces?
• When what made Chicago tick was far more local than national and certainly international and Chicago, like other great cities, were more about being themselves than in sharing endless and monotinous, and crassy multinational and corporate?
Yes to everything, but that era is long gone and most here probably can't even imagine it. We live in entirely different world now. It's not the Golden Age of anything. Perhaps in time there will be a real Renaissance.
I don't get the big deal about Millenium Park. I live right down the street a mile and never go there. However I do go to Grant and Burnhan Parks a great deal and I often go to McGuane and Armour Square Parks. I like to sit on bench under a tree and relax, smoke a cigar. When you've seen Millenium once that's about it unless you're going to a concert. I don't see anywhere to play fast-pitching there.
that's fine, tom; not everyone is going to relate to it. me? i like the sense of grand public space. and, yes, i do think it contributes to our quality of life.
how many modern, expensive spaces sit there to serve the people and truly belong to them. Millennium Park is part of Grant Park and that makes it part of our front yard.
yep, you can go to Mcguane and Armour Square parks and throughly enjoy yourself. Indeed parks away from the core offer a "getting away" and solace that you will never get at Millennium Park. Look at Lincoln Park.....what a treasure and it just touches the downtown core of Chicago on its southern boundary, North Avenue.
But Millennium Park is downtown, is central, and screams Chicago. I enjoy the interplay of all the fantastic "rooms" that make up the park (rooms they are; the park divides itself into intimate subdivisions).
Expensive: yes. Worth it: damned right.
Rich Daley was part of a different era, much of it the go-go 80's and 90's, the great rebirth of Chicago's score, the enhancement of the public commons, the lavishment of the city's heart. Daley sold Chicago as lifestyle from Navy Pier to the Museum Campus to Millennium Park to the endless street beautifcation programs. He was very much Daley II, a Daley of a different era from his dad. Dick had UIC, O'Hare, the expressways (for better or worse), McCormick Place for his record. Big, bold Chicago. Richie dealt with refinements and conversion from blue collar to white.
And Rahm Emanuel, for whatever one might think of him, is a mayor of his times, too: tight money, little available for grand scale projects. He is into accountability and seeing money stretched and used correctly (IMHO).
Emanuel never could (nor should, given his time) given us a Millennium Park. But in these austere times, I'm awfully happy that Rich Daley pulled this off. My guess? You'll never see anything like it again in our lifetimes in the way of grand public space.
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